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TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 




BOOKER T. WASHINGTON. 




TUSKEGEE 

ITS PEOPLE: THEIR IDEALS 
AND ACHIEVEMENTS $ * $ 



EDITED BY 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 




D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK 

1905 






LIBRARY of JONGRESS 
Two Copies liecuivou 

JUN 2 iyo5 

Gouyriieni entry 

;<^~-"-Tri mil ■ 11. .iiiLii ,1 




Copyright, 1905, by 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



PublUhed June, 1905 



^ 7 V 



PREFACE 



In a general way the reading public is fairly 
well acquainted with the work of the Tuskegee 
Normal and Industrial Institute, but there is con- 
tinued demand for definite information as to just 
what the graduates of that institution are doing 
with their education. 

That inquiry is partly answered by this book. 
The scope of the Tuskegee Institute work is out- 
lined by the chapters contained in Part I, while 
those of Part II evidence the fact that the gradu- 
ates of the school are grappling at first-hand with 
the conditions that environ the masses of the Negro 
people. 

At the school, in addition to the regular Nor- 
mal School course of academic work, thirty-six 
industries are taught the young men and women. 
These are: Agriculture; Basketry; Blacksmithing ; 
Bee-keeping; Brickmasonry ; Plastering; Brick- 
making; Carpentry; Carriage Trimming; Cook- 
ing; Dairying; Architectural, Freehand, and Me- 



PREFACE 

chanical Drawing; Dressmaking; Electrical and 
Steam Engineering; Founding; Harness-making; 
Housekeeping; Horticulture; Canning; Plain 
Sewing; Laundering; Machinery; Mattress-mak- 
ing; Millinery; Nurse Training; Painting; Saw- 
milling; Shoemaking; Printing; Stock-raising; 
Tailoring; Tinning; and Wheelwrighting. 

Since the founding of the institution, July 4, 
1881, seven hundred and forty-six graduates have 
gone out from the institution, while more than six 
thousand others who were not able to remain and 
complete the academic course, and thereby secure 
a diploma, have been influenced for good by it. 

The school has sought from the very beginning 
to make itself of practical value to the Negro peo- 
ple and to the South as well. It has taught those 
industries that are of the South, the occupations in 
which our men and women find most ready em- 
ployment, and unflinchingly has refused to aban- 
don its course; it has sought to influence its young 
men and women to live unselfish, sacrificing lives; 
to put into practise the lessons taught on every side 
that make for practical, helpful every-day living. 

In the main those who go out from Tuskegee 
Institute, (1) follow the industry they have been 
taught, (2) teach in a public or private school or 

vi 



PREFACE 

teach part of the year and farm or labor the rest, 
(3) follow housekeeping or other domestic service, 
or (4) enter a profession or the Government serv- 
ice, or become merchants. Among the teachers are 
many who instruct in farming or some industry; 
the professional men are largely physicians, and 
the professional women mostly trained nurses. 
Dr. Washington, the Principal of the school, 
makes the unqualified statement: "After diligent 
investigation, I can not find a dozen former stu- 
dents in idleness. They are in shop, field, school- 
room, home, or the church. They are busy because 
thej?^ have placed themselves in demand by learn- 
ing to do that which the world wants done, and 
because they have learned the disgrace of idleness 
and the sweetness of labor." 

No attempt has here been made to represent all 
of the industries; no attempt has especially been 
made to confine representation to those who are 
working at manual labor. The public, or at least 
a part of it, somewhat gratuitously, has reached 
the conclusion that Tuskegee Institute is a " serv- 
ant training school," or an employment agency. 
That is a mistaken idea. 

The object of the school is to train men and 
women who will go out and repeat the wpj.*!^ done 

vii 



PREFACE 

here, to teach what they have learned to others, and 
to leaven the whole mass of the Negro people in the 
South with a desire for the loiowledge and profit- 
able operation of those industries in which they 
have in so large a measure the right of way. Tus- 
kegee students and graduates are never urged not 
to take such service, especially not to refuse in 
preference to idleness, but it all involves a simple, 
ordinary, economic principle. Capable men and 
women, skilled in the industrial arts, are like those 
of all races — they seek the most profitable employ- 
ment. A blacksmith, a tailor, a brickmason, a 
harness-maker, or other artisan, who can find work 
in shops and factories, or independently, and make 
thirty to seventy-five dollars a month, and even 
more, will not, simply because he is black, leave 
those chances to accept service in private employ- 
ment for fifteen dollars per month, and less, and 
board himself. No school could covenant to train 
servants for an indefinite tenure ; it can at best only 
promise to train leaders who shall go among the 
masses and lift them up ; to train men and women 
who shall in turn reach hundreds of others. 

Those who write the following chapters repre- 
sent, in the main, this class. They have written 
simply, with perfect frankness, have dealt with the 

viii 



PREFACE 

significant things of their lives, and have demon- 
strated, the writer believes, that from humble 
origin black men and women may confidently be 
counted upon, with proper encouragement, to win 
success. The chapters are autobiograj^hical, sig- 
nificantly optimistic, with just pride in what has 
been done, and outlining, as did " Up from Slav- 
ery" — which was commended as a proper model 
■ — experiences from childhood, the school-life of 
the writer, and the results achieved in the direc- 
tion of putting into practise what was learned in 
school. Through this symposium it is hoped that 
the public may learn, in the best possible way, some 
of the finer results already accomplished by the 

Tuskegee Institute. 

E. J. S. 

Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, April 1, 1905. 



IX 



CONTENTS 



FACE 

GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1 

By Booker T. Washington. 

PART I 

THE SCHOOL AND ITS PDRPOSES 

I.— PRESENT ACHIEVEMENTS AND GOVERNING 

IDEALS 19 

By Emmett J. Scott, Mr. Washington's Executive 
Secretary. 

II.— RESOURCES AND MATERIAL EQUIPMENT . . 35 

By Warren Logan, Treasurer of the School. 

III.— THE ACADEMIC AIMS 56 

By Roscoe C. Bruce, Director of the Academic De- 
partment. 

IV.— WHAT GIRLS ARE TAUGHT, AND HOW ... 68 
By Mrs. Booker T. Washington, Director of Indus- 
tries for Girls. 

v.— HAMPTON INSTITUTE'S RELATION TO TUS- 

KEGEE 87 

By Robert R. Moton. 

PART II 

AUTOBIOGRAPHIES BY GRADUATES OF THE SCHOOL 

L— A COLLEGE PRESIDENT'S STORY . . . .101 
By Isaac Fisher, of Pine Bluff, Arkansas. 

II.— A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'S STORY lU 

By William H. Holtzclaw, of Utica, Mississippi. 

xi 



CONTENTS 



III.— A LAWYER'S STORY 141 

By George W. Lovejoy, of Mobile, Alabama. 

IV.— A SCHOOL TREASURER'S STORY . . .152 

By Martin A. Menafee, of Denmark, South Carolina. 

v.— THE STORY OF A FARMER 164 

By Frank Reid, of Dawkins, Alabama. 

VI.— THE STORY OF A CARPENTER . . .173 

By Gabriel B. Miller, of Fort Valley, Georgia. 

Vn.— COTTON-GROWING IN AFRICA . . .184 

By John W. Robinson, of Lome, Togo, West Africa. 

VIII.— THE STORY OF A TEACHER OF COOKING . 200 

By Mary L. Dotson, of Tuskegee Institue, Alabama. 

IX.— A WOMAN'S WORK 211 

By Cornelia Bowen, of Waugh (Mt. Meigs), Alabama. 

X.— UPLIFTING OF THE SUBMERGED MASSES . 224 
By W. J. Edwards, of Snow Hill, Alabama. 

XL— A DAIRYMAN'S STORY 253 

By Lewis A. Smith, of Rockford, Illinois. 

XII.— THE STORY OF A WHEELWRIGHT . . .264 
By Edward Lomax, of Tuskegee Institute, Alabama. 

XIII.— THE STORY OF A BLACKSMITH . . . .276 
By Jubie B. Bragg, of Tallahassee, Florida. 

XIV.— A DRUGGIST'S STORY 285 

By David L. Johnston, of Birmingham, Alabama. 

XV.— THE STORY OF A SUPERVISOR OF MECHAN- 
ICAL INDUSTRIES 299 

By James M. Canty, of Institute P. O., West Virginia. 

XVI.— A NEGRO COMMUNITY BUILDER . . . .317 
By Russell C. Calhoun, of Eatonville, Florida. 

XVII.— THE EVOLUTION OF A SHOEMAKER . . .338 
By Charles L. Marshall, of Cambria, Virginia. 



XII 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING 
PAGE 

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON .... Frontispiece 

EMMETT J. SCOTT 20 

Mr. Washington's Executive Secretary. 

THE COLLIS P. HUNTINGTON MEMORIAL BUILDING 26 

WARREN LOGAN 36 

Treasurer of the School 

THE OFFICE BUILDING IN PROCESS OF ERECTION . 50 

Student carpenters shown at work. 

ROSCOE C. BRUCE 56 

Director of the Academic Department. 

A PORTION OF THE SCHOOL GROUNDS . . .64 

ANOTHER PORTION OF THE SCHOOL GROUNDS . . 66 

MRS. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 68 

Director of Industries for Girls. 

A CLASS IN MILLINERY 76 

THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 94 

Standing, left to right : P. C. Parks, Superintendent of Farm ; George 
W. Carver, Director, Agricultural Department ; J. N. Calloway, 
Land Extension ; John H. Palmer, Registrar ; Charles H. Gibson, 
Resident Auditor ; Edgar J. Penney, Chaplain. 

Seated, left to right : Lloyd G. Wheeler, Business Agent ; Robert R. 
Taylor, Director of Mechanical Industries ; John H. Washington, 
General Superintendent of Industries ; Warren Logan, Treasurer ; 
Booker T. Washington, Principal ; Miss Jane E. Clark, Dean of 
Woman's Department; Mrs. Booker T. Washington, Director of In- 
dustries for Girls: and Emmett J. Scott, Secretary to the Principal. 

The Director of the Academic Department, Roscoe C. Bruce, and the 
Commandant of Cadets, Major J. B. Ramsey, also members of 
the Executive Council, were absent when photograph was taken. 

xiii 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

THE CARNEGIE LIBRARY BUILDING . . . .108 

MORNING AT THE BARNS ON THE SCHOOL FARM . 122 

Teams of horses and cattle ready to start for the day's work. 

STUDENTS PRUNING PEACH-TREES 146 

A SILO ON THE FARM 166 

Students filling it with fodder corn, steam-power being used. 

A MODEL DINING-ROOM 208 

From the department where table-service is taught. 

THE CULTURE OF BEES 220 

Students at work in the apiary. 

IN THE DAIRY 254 

Students using separators. 

STUDENTS AT WORK IN THE HARNESS SHOP . . 270 

AT THE HOSPITAL 294 

A corner in the boys' ward. 

IN THE TIN SHOP 300 

STUDENTS CANNING FRUIT . . . . . . .308 

STARTING A NEW BUILDING 314 

Student masons laying the foundation in brick. 

GIRLS GARDENING 344 



XIV 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION 
By Booker T. Washington 

Institutions, like individuals, are properly 
judged by their ideals, their methods, and their 
achievements in the production of men and women 
who are to do the world's work. 

One school is better than another in proportion 
as its system touches the more pressing needs of 
the people it aims to serve, and provides the more 
speedily and satisfactorily the elements that bring 
to them honorable and enduring success in the 
struggle of life. Education of some kind is the 
first essential of the young man, or young woman, 
who would lay the foundation of a career. The 
choice of the school to which one will go and 
the calling he will adopt must be influenced in 
a very large measure by his environments, trend of 
ambition, natural capacity, possible opportunities 

1 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

in the proposed calling, and the means at his 
command. 

In the past twenty-four years thousands of the 
youth of this and other lands have elected to come 
to the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute 
to secure what they deem the training that would 
oifer them the widest range of usefulness in the 
activities open to the masses of the Negro people. 
Their hopes, fears, strength, weaknesses, struggles, 
and triumphs can not fail to be of absorbing 
interest to the great body of American people, 
more particularly to the student of educational 
theories and their attendant results. 

When an institution has, like Tuskegee Insti- 
tute, reached that stage in its development that 
its system of instruction has aroused very general 
discussion, and has given to the world of varied 
industry an army of workers, numbering not less 
than 6,000, there is a natural curiosity on the 
part of the public to learn all that is possible 
of such an institution, and of the personality and 
methods of those administering its affairs. They 
wish to ascertain the actual truth concerning its 
resources and equipment; they want figures de- 
tailing the degree of pecuniary productiveness and 
moral efficiency attained by those who have re- 

2 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

ceived the prescribed training; and they are eager 
to hear the whole story from the hps of both the 
instructors and the instructed as to how the re- 
corded results have been accomplished. 

In several volumes already published, bearing 
upon Tuskegee Institute and what it stands for, 
an endeavor has been made to present a truthful 
account of the Principal's early strivings and life- 
work; an honest attempt has been made to analyze 
and impress the basic principles upon which Tuske- 
gee Institute was founded. It has been the aim 
to write a history of individual yearnings for the 
light of knowledge that would stir the inner con- 
sciousness of the humblest of the race and arouse 
him to the vast possibilities that lie in the wake 
of solid character, intelligent industry, and ma- 
terial acquisition. He has tried, with all earnest- 
ness, to hold up the future of the American Negro 
in its most attractive aspect, and to emphasize the 
virile philosophy that there is a positive dignity 
in working with the hands, when that labor is forti- 
fied by a developed brain and a consecrated heart. 

Though much has been said of the spirit and 
purpose of this center of social and economic up- 
lift in the famed Black Belt of the South, there 
is still a wide-spread demand for a more specific 
2 3 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

recital of what is being done here, by whom, under 
what conditions, and the concrete evidences of the 
benefits that are growing out of the thrift, indus- 
try, right thinking, and right living taught by our 
faculty. 

In response to this insistent call, Mr. Emmett 
J. Scott, Executive Secretary of the Tuskegee In- 
stitute, presents to the public a further contribu- 
tion, Tuskegee and Its People: Their Ideals and 
Achievements, with authentic accompanying au- 
tobiographies of a number of typical students of 
the school. 

To this work Mr. Scott brings a peculiar fit- 
ness, unequaled by any other person who might 
have been chosen to perform it. He is closely 
knit to the Southland and her great masses by 
the common sympathy of nativity and the mutu- 
ality of hopes. The South has always been his 
home, but he has traveled so extensively and 
mingled so freely that he has acquired most ample 
breadth of vision as regards men and things. 

For many years now Mr. Scott has served 
the school with rare fidelity and zeal, and has been 
to the Principal not only a loyal assistant in every 
phase of his manifold and frequently trying duties, 
but has proved a valuable personal friend and 

4 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

counselor in matters of the most delicate nature, 
exhibiting in emergencies a quality of judgment 
and diplomatic calmness seldom found in men of 
even riper maturity and more extended experience. 

As I stated in one of my books published several 
years ago, as far as one individual can fill the place 
of another, Mr. Scott has acted in the Principal's 
stead, seeing with the Principal's eyes and hearing 
with the Principal's ears, counting no sacrifice 
too great to be made for Tuskegee's well-being. 
He is in perfect accord with the fundamental 
principles and practical policies through the per- 
sistent adherence to which Tuskegee Institute 
has won its conspicuous place in the educational 
world. 

The volume here presented has been edited by 
Mr. Scott with the utmost care, he preferring to 
have the contributors understate rather than over- 
state the results that have come from the labors 
of Tuskegee and its people. It has been the Prin- 
cipal's pleasure and privilege to examine and crit- 
ically review the manuscript after its comple- 
tion, and the volume is so praiseworthy that 
it is given his cordial approval. The task of 
editing he had expected to perform has been 
so well done that it has only been necessary to 

5 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

review the manuscript after its preparation for 
the pubHshers, and to forego the strict editorial 
revisioning planned. The book is an accurate por- 
trait of the Tuskegee of to-day, and reasonably 
forecasts the hopes for the institution of to-mor- 
row. It tells with forceful directness and graphic 
precision the formative work that is being done 
for this generation, and supplies a fulcrum upon 
which there may justly rest a prophecy of greater 
things for the generations that are to follow. 

A Tuskegee book, whatever its primary motive, 
is invariably expected to deal broadly with the 
entire problem of the Negro and his relationships 
of every kind. It must be more than a mere flesh- 
and-blood narrative, descriptive of the material 
progress of the men and women the Institute has 
produced and is producing. It must be a book 
free from ostentatious pretension, breathing the 
atmosphere of the life of the earnest people it 
describes. It must, of course, exhibit not only the 
achievements, but also the ideals, the possibilities 
of the Tuskegee trained man and woman. This, 
I feel, is adequately done in this volume. 

Tuskegee and Its People possesses ideals in 
thought, morals, and action — and they are lofty. 
In these respects the symposium will not prove a 

6 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

disappointment. This instinct for the ideal, how- 
ever, hes not in idly sighing for it, but is born 
of an abiding belief that worth is intrinsic, and 
that applied common sense, practical knowledge, 
constancy of effort, and mechanical skill will make 
a place for the patient striver far more secure 
than the artificial niche into which some one may 
thrust him. The masses who are most helpfully 
reached by the Tuskegee Institute are coming to 
realize that education in its truest sense is no 
longer to be regarded as an emotional impulse, a 
fetish made up of loosely joined information, to 
be worshiped for its mere possession, but as a 
practical means to a definite end. They are being 
taught that mind-training is the logical helpmeet 
of hand-training, and that both, supplemented and 
sweetened by heart-training, make the high-souled, 
useful, productive, patriotic, law-loving, public- 
spirited citizen, of whom any nation might well 
be proud. The outcome of such education will 
be that, instead of the downtrodden child of igno- 
rance, shiftlessness, and moral weakness, we shall 
generate the thoroughly rounded man of prudence, 
foresight, responsibility, and financial independ- 
ence. He will cease to be the gullible victim 
of the sharper who plays upon vanity, credulity, 

7 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

and superstition, and learn to value only that which 
is real and substantial. It is of the highest im- 
portance to the Negro, who must make his way 
amid disadvantages and embarrassments of the se- 
verest character, that he be made aware of the 
vast difference between working and being worked. 
In carrying this inspiring message and impress- 
ing these fundamental truths, the new Tuske- 
gee book renders a splendid service. 

Industrial training will be more potent for 
good to the race when its relation to the other 
phases of essential education is more clearly under- 
stood. There is afloat no end of discussion as to 
what is the " proper kind of education for the 
Negro," and much of it is hurtful to the cause 
it is designed to promote. The danger, at pres- 
ent, that most seriously threatens the success of in- 
dustrial training, is the ill-advised insistence in cer- 
tain quarters that this form of education should be 
offered to the exclusion of all other branches of 
knowledge. If the idea becomes fixed in the minds 
of the people that industrial education means class 
education, that it should be offered the Negro be- 
cause he is a Negro, and that the Negro should be 
confined to this sort of education, then I fear 
serious injury will be done the cause of hand-train- 

8 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

ing. It should be understood rather that at such 
institutions as Hampton Institute and Tuskegee 
Institute, industrial education is not emphasized 
because colored people are to receive it, but because 
the ripest educational thought of the world ap- 
proves it; because the undeveloped material re- 
sources of the South make it peculiarly important 
for both races; and because it should be given 
in a large measure to any race, regardless of color, 
which is in the same stage of development as the 
Negro. 

On the other hand, no one understanding the 
real needs of the race would advocate that indus- 
trial education should be given to every Negro to 
the exclusion of the professions and other branches 
of learning. It is evident that a race so largely 
segregated as the Negro is, must have an increas- 
ing number of its own professional men and 
women. There is, then, a place and an increasing 
need for the Negro college as well as for the in- 
dustrial institute, and the two classes of schools 
should, and as a matter of fact do, cooperate in 
the common purpose of elevating the masses. 
There is nothing in hand-training to suggest that 
it is a class-training. The best educational au- 
thorities in the world are indorsing it as an es- 

9 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

sential feature in the education of both races, and 
especially so when a very large proportion of the 
people in question are compelled by dint of cir- 
cumstances to earn their living in manufactures 
and agricultural and mechanical pursuits in gen- 
eral. It so happens that the bulk of our people 
are permanently to remain in the South, and con- 
ditions beyond their control have attached them to 
the soil; for a long time the status of the majority 
of them is likely to be that of laborers. To make 
hard conditions easier, to raise comimon labor from 
drudgery to dignity, and to adopt systems of train- 
ing that will meet the needs of the greatest num- 
ber and prepare them for the better things that 
intelligent effort will surely bring, form a task 
to which the wisest of the race are addressing them- 
selves with an eager enthusiasm which refuses to 
be chilled by adverse criticism. 

Tuskegee emphasizes industrial training for 
the Negro, not with the thought that the Negro 
should be confined to industrialism, the plow, or 
the hoe, but because the undeveloped material re- 
sources of the South oiFer at this time a field pecul- 
iarly advantageous to the worker skilled in agri- 
culture and the industries, and here are found the 
Negro's most inviting opportunities for taking on 

10 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

the rudimentary elements that ultimately make for 
a permanently progressive civilization. 

The Tuskegee Idea is that correct education 
begins at the bottom, and expands naturally as 
the necessities of the people expand. As the race 
grows in knowledge, experience, culture, taste, and 
wealth, its wants are bound to become more and 
more diverse; and to satisfy these wants there will 
be gradually developed within our own ranks — as 
has already been true of the whites — a constantly 
increasing variety of professional and business men 
and women. Their places in the economic world 
will be assured and their prosperity guaranteed in 
proportion to the merit displayed by them in their 
several callings, for about them will have been es- 
tablished the solid bulwark of an industrial mass 
to which they may safely look for support. The 
esthetic demands will be met as the capacity of 
the race to procure them is enlarged through the 
processes of sane intellectual advancement. In 
this cumulative way there will be erected by the 
Negro, and for the Negro, a complete and inde- 
structible civilization that will be respected by all 
whose respect is worth the having. There should 
be no limit placed upon the development of any 
individual because of color, and let it be under- 

IX 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

stood that no one kind of training can safely 
be prescribed for any entire race. Care should be 
taken that racial education be not one-sided for 
lack of adaptation to person fitness, nor un- 
wieldy through sheer top-heaviness. Education, to 
fulfil its mission for any people anywhere, should 
be symmetrical and sensible. 

A mastery of the industries taught at Tuske- 
gee presupposes and requires no small degree of 
academic study, for competency in agriculture calls 
for considerable knowledge of chemistry, and no 
mechanical pursuit can be followed satisfactorily 
without some acquaintance with mathematics and 
the " three R's." Likewise, the individual of lib- 
eral academic or college preparation possesses a 
stronger equipment for constructive work who has 
trained his hands to supplement his brain. 

After all, the final test of the value of any 
system of education is found in the record of its 
actual achievements. In Tuskegee and Its People 
heads of the several departments have not only 
given a succinct account of the history, resources, 
and current labors of the school, but deal most hap- 
pily with the governing ideals behind the institu- 
tion, and vindicate its claim to the approval of 
the world's thinkers and moving forces. Besides 

12 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

treating rather elaborately the structural efficiency 
of the work of the teachers, the editor has not neg- 
lected to emphasize the spiritual and ethical vir- 
tues that spread over a wider range of influence 
here and among our people throughout the South- 
land than those familiar with the purely academic 
phases have adequately understood. 

Tuskegee's germ principle is to be found in 
its unboasted ideals, in the things that of necessity 
can not be listed in catalogue or report, rather than 
in its buildings, shops, farms, and what not. The 
school dwells upon the saving power of land, and 
learning, and skill, and a bank-account — not as 
finalities in themselves, but as tangible witnesses 
to the Negro's capacity to compete with others. 

Perhaps the newest and most refreshing fea- 
ture of the book is its vivid pen-portraits of the 
young men and women who have gone out of Tus- 
kegee carrying into diversified lives the principles 
and precepts imbibed from their parent school. 
The pictures are drawn by the originals themselves, 
and they illustrate by honorable achievement the 
wholesome and evangelizing influence of Tuske- 
gee's preachments, and the far-reaching efl'ect of 
placing before them as teachers the highest ex- 
ample of what the Negro of morals and manners 

13 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

may become. They tell their story at first-hand, 
modestly and sincerely, and the foundations of 
inspiring lives, laid in the Christian virtues and 
conscientious service of their fellow men, foster 
a firm belief that the school is doing a work that 
will live. 

These types of Tuskegee's graduates, picked 
out at random from hundreds of equal scholarship 
and ability, represent distinctive channels of activ- 
ity, including the president of a leading college, 
principals and teachers of thriving schools, a law- 
yer, a tinner, a school treasurer, farmers, cot- 
ton-growers, master builders and contractors, a 
dairyman, and a blacksmith. No element contribu- 
ting to the racial uplift is overlooked. The scenes 
of their labors are scattered over a vast area, show- 
ing convincingly the diffusive character as well 
as the rich harvest garnered through the Tuske- 
gee Idea. These rough-hewn sketches of a sturdy 
pioneer band in staking out a larger life and a 
wider horizon for later generations are worthy 
of the most careful perusal. 

The immeasurable advancement of the Negro, 
manifested in character, courage, and cash, vital- 
ized by valiant service to the republic in education, 
commerce, and religion, and crowned by an 

U 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

enlightened, vigorously efficient, sensibly ambi- 
tious, and law-abiding citizenship, is " confirma- 
tion strong as proofs of Holy Writ " that the gos- 
pel of industry, as exemplified by Tuskegee and its 
helpers, has exerted a leavening influence upon 
civilization wherever it has been brought within 
the reach of those who are struggling toward 
the heights. Under this new dispensation of mind, 
morals, and muscle, with the best whites and best 
blacks in sympathetic cooperation, and justice 
meaning the same to the weak as to the strong, the 
South will no longer be vexed by a " race problem." 
Peace and prosperity for all will come with 
the strength to rise above the baser self. Civic 
righteousness is the South's speediest thoroughfare 
to economic greatness. 

A book that opens the inner chambers of a 
people's heart, and sheds a light that may guide 
the footsteps of both races along the upward way, 
should meet with a hearty welcome at the hands 
of all lovers of mankind. 



15 



PART I 
THE SCHOOL AND ITS PURPOSES 



PRESENT ACHIEVEMENTS AND 
GOVERNING IDEALS 

By Emmett J. Scott 

So much has been said about Tuskegee Insti- 
tute as a training-school in which to prepare young 
colored men and women for earning a living in the 
world of trade and business, that the ideals and 
spirit behind all this training are to a very large 
extent lost sight of. 

Tuskegee, with its hundreds of acres of farm- 
land under intelligent cultivation, with its ever- 
increasing number of well-appointed buildings and 
its equipment, and the many things on the grounds 
included in the name of handicrafts, is always in 
the public eye, and continually appeals to the 
interest of those who are deeply concerned in the 
well-being and progress of the Negro people. 

Yet behind all of these more tangible manifes- 
tations of work, skill, and achievement, there is an 
unseen, persistent groping after the higher ideals 

of life and living. No one can remain long on 
3 19 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

the grounds as an intelligent observer of all that is 
to be here seen and felt, without recognizing that 
the things that are not written in the catalogue and 
not a part of the daily program of activities are 
real, vital, and of far-reaching importance. 

Principal Booker T. Washington and the men 
and women who have helped him to build Tuskegee 
Institute are constantly looking beyond the present 
to a future filled with the evidences of a better liv- 
ing for all those who have felt the transforming 
spirit of the hidden forces at work. 

How the perspective widens and deepens ! Far, 
far beyond the confines of the Tuskegee Institute 
community the light of this new life is seen and 
felt and has its salutary effect. The stagnant life 
of centuries has awakened, and is casting off its 
bonds. A new term, " intelHgent thrift," has come 
into its possession. Wherever this term has gone 
and taken root, there has gone with it the thought 
that unless the idea make for character, as well as 
for more cotton or corn, it is not of much value. 

The Tuskegee Idea always asks one question, 
and that is, "What are you?" and not, "What 
have you? " The man who does not rise superior to 
his possessions does not measure up to the Tuske- 
gee idea of manhood. 

20 



PRESENT ACHIEVEMENTS 

In other words, character-building is the Alpha 
and Omega of all that Tuskegee stands for. From 
the moment the new student comes on the grounds 
until he leaves, he is appealed to in ways innu- 
merable to regard life as mxOre than bread or meat, 
as more than mere mental equipment. Cleanli- 
ness, decorum, promptness, truthfulness — these are 
old-fashioned virtues, and are more properly taught 
in the home, but in Tuskegee they mean everything. 
Tuskegee not only acts as a teacher, but assumes 
the role of parent, and lays emphasis on the im- 
portance of these virtues every moment of the time 
from the entrance of the student until Commence- 
ment Day. The " cleanliness that is next to godli- 
ness " is one of the Tuskegee ideals, and a student 
can scarcely commit a more serious misdemeanor 
than to appear slovenly, either in dress or manners. 
The facilities and requirements for bathing are 
quite as complete and exacting as the equipments in 
the laboratories and recitation-rooms. The result is 
that Tuskegee has the reputation of being one of 
the most cleanly and sanitary institutions in the 
South. 

As for good manners, Lord Chesterfield him- 
self would scarcely ask more than is insisted upon 
by Tuskegee precision. A man must first be con- 

21 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

scious of being a gentleman before he can be recog- 
nized as such by others, and a girl's good manners 
are only outward evidences of her individual worth 
and passport to respectful treatment. Tuskegee 
Institute, then, insists upon these things because 
they make for character, and are a part of the 
ideals toward which all training tends. 

But how are all these things taught and en- 
forced? The first requisite, of course, is the char- 
acter of the teachers and instructors themselves, the 
men and women who are the embodiment of the 
ideals that Tuskegee Institute stands for. While 
it can not be claimed that the best teachers in the 
South are all at Tuskegee, it can be said that no 
other school has so large a number of colored men 
and women who have had the advantage of the 
highest industrial and intellectual, moral and re- 
ligious training. The teaching force is made up 
largely of graduates from nearly every first-class 
educational institution in America. These teachers 
have been carefully sought out and brought to Tus- 
kegee, not only for their teaching ability, but that 
the students may have the benefit of the best exam- 
ples before them of what the highest culture can do 
for men and women of their own race. For the 
majority of our students the perspective of life is 

22 



PRESENT ACHIEVEMENTS 

narrow: many of them have never lived out of the 
community in which they were born. That was 
their only world ; their ideals of life were shaped by 
their mean and narrow enviroimients. They have 
learned to believe, and act accordingly, that the 
best people are all of one complexion, and the worst 
and poorest people are all of another complexion. 
There is no such thing as creating a sentiment of 
race pride in such people unless they have set be- 
fore them living examples of their own race in 
whom they can feel a sense of pride. 

It is scarcely too much to say that one of the 
best things about the Tuskegee Institute is that 
it wins our young men and women from mean and 
sordid environment and brings them in contact 
with teachers whose minds, hearts, and lives have 
been enlarged and graced by the highest learning 
in the best educational institutions of the country. 
The school teaches no more important lesson than 
that of cultivating a sense of pride and respect for 
colored men and women who deserve it because of 
their character, education, and achievements. 

Pride of race, though not so written in the 
courses of study, is as much a part of Tuskegee's 
work as agriculture, brick-making, millinery, or 
any other trade, and quite as important. This may 

23 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

♦ 

be called sentiment, but it makes for race develop- 
ment quite as much as any of the material things 
taught in the class-room or shop. To borrow a line 
from George Eliot: 

" Because our race has no great memories, 
I will so live, it shall remember me 
For deeds of such divine beneficence 
As rivers have, that teach men what is good 
By blessing them — 

And make their name, now but a badge of scorn, 
A glorious banner floating in their midst. 
Stirring the air they breathe with impulses 
Of generous pride, exalting fellowship 
Until it soars to magnanimity." 

That self-respect demands race pride ; that vir- 
tue is its own reward ; that character is the greatest 
thing in human life, are taught and emphasized in 
other ways also. Dr. Washington has succeeded, to 
a remarkable degree, in developing the Tuskegee 
Institute by insisting that this institution must have 
nothing less than the best within and without it, 
everywhere. What is not best is only temporary. 
Those who have done most for the school have been 
made to feel that the character of the work done 
here and the ideals striven for are deserving of the 
best. The idea that " anything is good enough for 
a Negro school " has never been allowed to have 

24 



PRESENT ACHIEVEMENTS 

any part or exert any effect in Tuskegee's ex- 
pansion. 

For example, when Mr. Carnegie donated the 
money for a hbrary for Tuskegee, a building was 
erected of classic outline — a noble structure of ar- 
tistic symmetry and beauty that must appeal to 
every one who has any appreciation of architec- 
tural beauty. The Collis P. Huntington Memorial 
Building, just completed, a gift of Mrs. C. P. 
Huntington, used for the academic classes of the 
school, would be a credit and delight to any munici- 
pality. There is everything about the exterior and 
interior that must awaken a sense of pride in every 
pupil who enters its portals. Its facilities are sen- 
sible and unostentatious, yet they meet every re- 
quirement of the department. What is true of the 
new Academic Building is likewise true of the vari- 
ous dormitories for girls and boys. The cleanhness 
and the sanitation to be found at Tuskegee are in 
delightful contrast to the poor environment to 
which many of the students have been accustomed ; 
especially is this contrast heightened when these 
same students have, under competent direction, 
installed the plants which yield these comforts. 
Thus it is that in dormitory, recitation-room, shop, 
dining-hall, library, chapel, and landscape, the idea 

25 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

that only the best is worth having and striving for 
is emphasized as an object-lesson and principle 
with such insistence that it becomes an actual part 
of a student's training and life. 

The student at Tuskegee is constantly being 
trained to look up and forward. He learns how 
the idea of beauty can be actualized in home and 
social life ; how faithful performance of every duty 
means nobility of character; how the value of 
achievement is determined by the motive behind 
it. But besides these, the one aim, thought, or anxi- 
ety around which all others revolve is the high 
honorableness of all kinds of work intelligently 
done. 

In a section where those who work with their 
hands are marked olf by the inexorable line of caste 
from those who work with their brains or not at 
all, this idea of making intelligent work more 
honorable than intelligent idleness is of construc- 
tive value in race development. The problem that 
the Tuskegee Institute is helping to solve is not 
only that the colored people shall do their pro- 
portionate share of the work, but that they shall 
do it in such a way that the benefits will remain 
with those who do the work. Who can measure 
the transforming effect and influence when it can 

26 



PRESENT ACHIEVEMENTS 

be said that the " best mechanics " and the " best 
agriculturists " in the South are Negroes? Cer- 
tainly, if such a time ever comes, there will be no 
such painful thing as a race problem, as Negroes 
now see it and feel it. 

This is one of Tuskegee's largest ideals; not 
that Tuskegee alone can bring about a " consum- 
mation so devoutly to be wished," but it is am- 
bitious to be a potent factor in all the tendencies 
that make for such a condition of life in the heart 
of the South. So important is this aim and idea 
of Tuskegee, that it allows no criticism to affect, 
interfere, or obscure its vision. Tuskegee says to 
the world that it is determined not only to be a 
school, but an agent of civilization, a missionary 
for a better life, that shall stand for a kindlier re- 
lationship between the races. 

The school enthusiastically seeks to live up to 
the ideal of its Principal, that education in the 
broadest and truest sense is designed to influence 
individuals to help others; is designed, first, last, 
and all the time, to transform and energize indi- 
viduals into life-giving agencies for the uplift of 
their fellows. Principal Washington's whole edu- 
cational creed, accepted by Tuskegee Institute 
teachers and students alike, was recently declared 

27 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

in one of his familiar Sunday-evening " talks " to 
the students of the institution. Said he : • 

" Education in the broadest and truest sense 
will make an individual seek to help all people, re- 
gardless of race, regardless of color, regardless of 
condition. And you will find that the person who 
is most truly educated is the one who is going to 
be kindest, and is going to act in the gentlest man- 
ner toward persons who are unfortunate, toward 
the race or the individual that is most despised. 
The highly educated person is the one who is 
most considerate of those individuals who are less 
fortunate. I hope when you go out from here 
and meet persons who are afflicted by poverty, 
whether of mind or body, or persons who are un- 
fortunate in any way, that you will show your edu- 
cation by being just as kind and considerate toward 
those persons as it is possible for you to be. That 
is the way to test a person with education. You 
may see ignorant persons, who perhaps think 
themselves educated, going about the street, and 
when they meet an individual who is unfortunate — 
lame, or with a defect of body, mind, or speech — 
are inclined to laugh at and make sport of that in- 
dividual. But the highly educated person, the one 
who is really cultivated, is gentle and sympathetic 

28 



PRESENT ACHIEVEMENTS 

to every one. Education is meant to make us abso- 
lutely honest in dealing with our fellows. I do not 
care how much arithmetic we have, or how many 
cities we can locate; it is all useless unless we have 
an education that makes us absolutely honest. 
Education is meant to make us give satisfaction, 
and to get satisfaction out of giving it. It is 
meant to make us get happiness out of service for 
our fellows. And until we get to the point where 
we can get happiness and supreme satisfaction 
out of helping our fellows, we are not truly edu- 
cated. . . . Education is meant to make us 
appreciate the things that are beautiful in nature. 
A person is never educated until he is able to go 
into the swamps and woods and see something that 
is beautiful in the trees and shrubs there — is able 
to see something beautiful in the grass and flowers 
that surround him — is, in short, able to see some- 
thing beautiful, elevating, and inspiring in every- 
thing that God has created. Not only should edu- 
cation enable us to see beauty in these objects which 
God has jjut about us, but it is meant to influence 
us to bring beautiful objects about us. I hope that 
each one of you, after you graduate, will surround 
himself at home with what is beautiful, inspiring, 
and elevating. I do not believe that any person 

29 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

is educated so long as he lives in a dirty, miserable 
shanty. I do not believe that any person is edu- 
cated until he has learned to want to live in a 
clean room made attractive with pictures and 
books, and with such surroundings as are elevating. 
In a word, I wish to say again that education is 
meant to give us that culture, that refinement, 
that taste, which will make us deal truthfully and 
sympathetically with our fellow men, and will make 
us see what is beautiful, elevating, and inspiring in 
what God has created. I want you to bear in mind 
that your text-books, with all their contents, are not 
an end, but a means to an end — a means to help us 
get the highest, the best, the purest, and the most 
beautiful things out of life." 

The Tuskegee trained boy or girl has set be- 
fore him every hour in the day, and every day in 
the year, the substantial educational ideals here set 
forth. Books, valuable as they are, and nowhere 
more thoroughly reckoned as such than here, are 
only a means to an end : this is the gospel preached 
by the Tuskegee teacher. Life is the great, the 
eternal thing ; the serving of one's fellows, the min- 
istering unto the needy of a groping, developing 
people — this is the thing not forgotten, but ever 
constantly enforced by precept and by example. 

?>0 



PRESENT ACHIEVEMENTS 

The many old and time-worn frame buildings 
are being replaced by finely built and imposing 
brick and stone structures ; the tallow dip and anti- 
quated oil-lamp and gas-jet, as illuminators, have 
paled before the more brilliant white light of elec- 
tricity, installed by Tuskegee students and operated 
by them. Patience and faith! — these are Tuske- 
gee's watchwords and her standard virtues. What 
can not be accomplished to-day will certainly be 
accomplished to-morrow. 

So, in its larger outlook and household anxi- 
eties, Tuskegee Institute teachers are confident 
that the things taught and enforced by example 
and precept will justify their eiforts in helping 
to make a dependent people independent, a dis- 
tracted people confident, and an humble people to 
thrill with pride in itself and in its best men and 
women. Thus it is that Tuskegee Institute has 
never been satisfied with being merely a school, 
concerned wholly with its recitations and training 
in shop and field. Every student who carries a 
diploma from these grounds is urged not to hang 
that diploma on the wall as an ornament, as an evi- 
dence of individual superiority, but to make it mean 
something constructive and life-giving to every one 
in the community where he must live and work. 

31 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

The young men and women who are trained 
for mission work in foreign countries are not more 
carefully trained in the spirit of consecration than 
are these young men and women trained at Tuske- 
gee for the work of creating better economic and 
social conditions among their own people. It is not 
necessary to state here what has already been ac- 
complished in many parts of the South by Tuske- 
gee graduates. The selected examples set forth in 
this book are evidence enough. It is sufficient to 
say that the Tuskegee Institute is determined to 
become more and more a distinctive influence 
among the regenerative agencies that are gradually 
bringing order out of chaos, and justice, peace, 
and happiness out of the wretched disorders of 
a painful past. It is easy to trace the influence 
of such well-established institutions as Harvard 
and Yale in the progressive life of the American 
people. The sons of Harvard and Yale almost 
dominate civilization in America. In another 
sense, it is possible for Tuskegee to have a like 
influence in the many things that must be ac- 
complished in the South, before love and justice 
shall supplant race prejudice and race antago- 
nism. 

This reaching out helpfully in all directions 
32 



PRESENT ACHIEVEMENTS 

where help is needed is the distinguishing feature 
of Tuskegee. This race-loving spirit gives it a 
largeness of view and purpose that saves both its 
teachers and pupils from being narrow and self- 
centered. Take from Tuskegee all this " vision 
splendid," and it will at once shrink into common- 
place insignificance. " Set your ideals high," says 
the distinguished man who here is Principal as he 
was founder, " and in your efforts to reach them 
you become strong for greater things." It is but 
truth to say that no institution in all the land, 
whether for white or black education, stands for 
higher and more generous ideals. 

Unless the young man who goes away from 
Tuskegee as blacksmith, carpenter, printer, or as 
any other mechanic, is something more than these, 
he has been incapable of perceiving and taking in 
the ideals that go with these accomplishments. He 
has been taught over and over again to " hitch 
his wagon to the stars," and if he fail to do so, 
the fault is in himself, and not in Tuskegee. 

As between a poor doctor and a poor carpenter, 
there is but scant choice. They are both failures 
and to be avoided. Honor in one is as precious as 
in the other. Honor and efficiency — these, there- 
fore, are the ideal test of every son and daughter 

33 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

that passes out of these grounds into the larger 
world of work and responsibility. 

What a terrible task it has been and still is to 
teach the lessons of the upward spirit: " God's 
in His heaven, all's well with the world." Hope 
is strength and discouragement is weakness. Ev- 
erything that is false and unjust and wrong is 
transitory. Those who are brave enough to solve 
problems shall be more honored of mankind than 
those who create problems which they make no 
effort to solve. 

There can be no liberty without intelligence, 
no independence without industry, and no power 
for man, and no charm for woman, without char- 
acter. 

These are some of the ideals toward which all 
our teaching leads; without these there would be 
no Tuskegee; with them, as its very life and spirit 
and inspiration, Tuskegee shall lead into more 
,ways of peace, happiness, and power than we of 
this generation have yet dreamed of, or realized. 



34 



n 

RESOURCES AND MATERIAL 
EQUIPMENT 

By Warren Logan 

When the Alabama Legislature in 1881 passed 
an act to establish a Normal School for colored 
people at Tuskegee and appropriated for it $2,000 
yearly, it made no provision whatever for land or 
buildings; these were left to be provided for by 
the people who were to be benefited by the school. 
Here was almost a case of being required to make 
bricks without straw. But as matters have turned 
out, this neglect was the best thing that could have 
happened to the school. First it gave opportunity 
for the employment of those splendid qualities of 
pluck, self-help, and perseverance which have dis- 
tinguished Mr. Washington so preeminently in 
the building of Tuskegee. Moreover, the State 
has contributed nothing to the school in the way 
of land or buildings; it has not sought to control 
the property of the institution, leaving it free to 
be managed by the Board of Trustees. 
4 35 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

The school was opened on the 4th of July, 
1881, in an old church building in the town of 
Tuskegee, which lies nearly two miles from the 
present school-grounds. Later in the same year 
the growth of the school made it necessary to obtain 
additional room, which was found in a dilapidated 
shanty standing near the church and which had 
been used as the village schoolhouse since the war. 
These buildings were in such bad condition that 
when it rained it was necessary for the teacher and 
students to use umbrellas in order to protect them- 
selves from the elements while recitations were 
being conducted. 

Students who came from a distance boarded in 
families in the town, where the conditions of liv- 
ing were very much like those in their own homes, 
and these were far below proper standards. Mr. 
Washington, understanding the great need for 
colored people to be trained in correct ways of 
living as well as to be educated in books, deter- 
mined to secure a permanent location for the school, 
with buildings in which the students might live 
under the care and influence of teachers day and 
night, during the whole period of their connection 
with the school. 

It so happened at this time that there was an 
36 




WARREN LOGAN. 
Treasurer of the School. 



RESOURCES AND EQUIPMENT 

old farm of 100 acres in the western part of 
tlie town of Tuskegee, well suited to be the site 
of such a school, which could be had for $500. 
But where was the money to be found to pay 
for it? ^Ir. Washington himself had no money, 
and the people of the town, much interested as 
they were in the enterprise, were wholly unable to 
give direct financial assistance. General J. F. B. 
Marshall, then treasurer of the Hampton Insti- 
tute in Virginia, was appealed to for a loan of 
$200 with which to make the first payment. This 
he gladly made, and the farm was secured. 
In a few months sufficient money was raised from 
entertainments and subscriptions in the North and 
South (one friend in Connecticut giving $300) to 
return the loan of General Marshall and pay the 
balance due on the purchase of the property. 

The land thus secured, preparations were at 
once begun to put up a school building, toward the 
cost of which Mr. A. H. Porter, of Brooklyn, 
N. Y., gave $500, the structure being named 
Porter Hall in recognition of Mr. Porter's gen- 
erosity. In this building, which has three stories 
and a basement, all the operations of the school 
were for a time conducted. In the basement 
were a kitchen, dining-room, laundry, and commis- 

37 



TUSKEGEE AXD ITS PEOPLE 

sary. The first story was devoted to academic and 
industrial class-rooms ; in the second was an assem- 
bly-room, where devotions and public exercises for 
the whole school were held, while the tliird was 
given up to dormitories. 

From this small beginning has grown the pres- 
ent extensive plant at Tuskegee, comprising 2,300 
acres of land, on which are located 123 buildings 
of all kinds devoted to the uses of the institution. 
Some idea of the impression which the size of the 
school makes upon one who sees it for the first time 
may be gathered from the remark of a Northern 
visitor, who, upon returning to his home from a 
trip through the South, was asked by a friend 
if he had seen " Booker Washington's school." 
" School r' he replied. "I have seen Booker 
Washington's city." 

About 150 acres constitute the present campus, 
the rest of the school-lands being devoted to farms, 
truck-gardens, pastures, brick-yards, etc. Running 
through the grounds proper and extending the en- 
tire distance of the farms for two or three miles 
is a driveway, on either side of which, and on roads 
leading from it, are located the buildings of the 
Institute. These, for the most part, are brick 
structures, and have been built by the students 

38 



RESOURCES AND EQUIPMENT 

themselves under the direction of their instructors 
in the various building trades. The plans for these 
buildings have been drawn in the architectural- 
drawing division of the Institute. While not as 
ornate as the buildings of some other institutions, 
they are substantial and well adapted to the uses 
for which they are intended. The newer build- 
ings, constructed in the last ten years, are more 
artistic and imposing, showing great improvement 
in matters of architectural design and finish. Not 
only have the students performed the building 
operations that entered into the construction of 
these buildings, but they have also manufactured 
the brick, and have prepared much of the wooden 
and other materials that were used. We some- 
times speak of a man as self-made, but I have 
never known another great educational institution 
that could be so described. Tuskegee, itself, is 
distinctively self-made. 

Porter Hall was completed and occupied in the 
spring of 1883. The following year a brick build- 
ing for girls was undertaken, and two years later 
completed. This building, named Alabama Hall, 
is rectangular in shape and four stories high. 
It contains a kitchen and dining-room, reception- 
rooms, apartments of the Dean of the Woman's 

39 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

Department, and sleeping-rooms. There was no 
special gift made for this building, the money 
required for its erection being taken from the 
general funds of the Institute as they could be 
spared. A wing added later gave more space for 
dining-rooms and provided a number of sleeping- 
rooms. 

The money used in putting up the buildings at 
Tuskegee is made to do double duty. In the first 
place, it provides the buildings for which it was 
primarily given, and, in the second place, furnishes 
opportunities for young men to learn the trades 
which are employed in their construction. Follow- 
ing closely upon the completion of Alabama Hall, 
there was begun another brick structure to be used 
as a dormitory for young men. Olivia Davidson 
Hall bears the honored name of the school's first 
and only Assistant Principal. Miss Davidson 
performed a conspicuous part in establishing the 
school and placing its claim for support before the 
public. This building is a four-story structure, 
and the first of the school's buildings for which the 
plans were made by the teacher of architectural 
drawing. The plans for all the buildings put up 
by the Institute are now made in the division of 
architectural drawing in charge of Mi% R. R. Tay- 

40 



RESOURCES AND EQUIPMENT 

lor, a graduate of the JNIassachusetts Institute of 
Technology, who is ably assisted by Mr. W. S. 
Pittman, a graduate of Tuskegee and of the 
Drexel Institute in Philadelphia. 

The need for a building to house the mechanical 
industries which, until 1892, had been conducted in 
temi)orary frame buildings on diiferent parts of 
the grounds, led to the erection of Cassedy Hall, 
a three-story brick building standing at the east 
entrance to the grounds. Cassedy Hall, together 
with a smaller building devoted to a blacksmith 
shop and foundry, was used for the purpose men- 
tioned, until three years ago, when all the indus- 
tries for men were moved into the Slater-Arm- 
strong Memorial Trades Building, at the opposite 
end of the grounds. Through the generosity of 
Mr. George F. Peabody, of New York, Cassedy 
Hall has since been converted into a dormitory for 
young men, and serves admirably for this purpose. 

Phelps Hall, which is the Bible Training School 
Building, is the gift of two New York ladies who 
desired to do something to improve the Negro 
ministry. The building is of wood and has three 
stories, containing a lecture-hall, recitation-rooms, 
library, and sleeping-rooms for young men. A 
broad veranda extends entirely around the building. 

41 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

Last year there were enrolled fifty-six students 
for the course in Bible Training, and among them 
were a number of ordained ministers who have 
regular charges. Phelps Hall was dedicated in 
1892, Dr. Lyman Abbott preaching the dedica- 
tory sermon and General Samuel C. Armstrong 
delivering an address, which was among his last 
public utterances. 

In the next year Science Hall (now called 
Thrasher Hall, after the lamented Max Bennett 
Thrasher) was built. This is a handsome three- 
story building, with recitation-rooms and labora- 
tories in the first two stories, and sleeping-rooms 
for teachers and boys in the third story. About 
this time a frame cottage with two stories and attic 
was built by the school as a residence for Mr. 
Washington. This he occupied until the gift of 
two Brooklyn friends enabled him to erect on his 
own lot, just opposite the school-grounds, his pres- 
ent handsome brick residence, where he dispenses 
a generous hospitality to the school's guests and to 
the teachers of the Institute. The cottage which 
he vacated was afterward utilized for a time as a 
library, but now is the home of Director Bruce of 
the Academic Department. 

Alabama Hall, already mentioned, soon proved 
^2 



RESOURCES AND EQUIPMENT 

inadequate to meet the needs of the Woman's De- 
partment. A long one-story frame building, hav- 
ing the shape of a letter T, was then erected just 
in the rear of Alabama Hall. It has been used 
for girls' sleeping-rooms until this year, when it 
was taken down to make room for a park and play- 
ground for young women. There were also suc- 
cessively built for the growing demands of this 
department, and in the vicinity of the original girls' 
building, Willow Cottage, Hamilton Cottage, 
Parker Memorial Home, Huntington Hall, and 
only this last year Douglass Hall. Huntington 
Hall is the gift of Mrs. Collis P. Huntington. 
In design, finish, and appointments it is one of the 
best buildings owned by the school. 

Three years ago a wealthy but unostentatious 
gentleman, who would not permit his name to be 
used in connection with his benefaction, gave the 
school $25,000 for a building for girls, suggesting 
that the structure should bear the name of some 
noted Negro. Douglass Hall was erected with this 
money and named in honor of that great leader 
of the race, Frederick Douglass. It is a two-story 
brick building, with a basement in its central sec- 
tion, and contains 40 sleeping-rooms, a reception- 
room, bathrooms, and a large assembly-room with 

43 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

a seating capacity of 450. In this room the Dean 
of the Woman's Department holds meetings with 
the girls on questions of health, morals, and man- 
ners. The building is heated with steam and 
lighted by electricity. All in all, Douglass Hall is 
the best of the buildings so far built by the Insti- 
tute, and is a fitting monument to the man whose 
name it bears. 

The Slater- Armstrong Memorial Agricultural 
Building was completed and dedicated in 1897. 
Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture of 
the United States, honored the school by his pres- 
ence and an address on the occasion of the formal 
opening of this building. It is a brick structure 
of two-and-a-half stories, with recitation-rooms, 
laboratory, museums, library, and an office for the 
use of the Department of Agriculture. In ad- 
dition to its appropriation of $3,000 for the gen- 
eral work of the school, the State of Alabama 
makes an annual appropriation of $1,500 for the 
maintenance of an Agricultural Experiment Sta- 
tion. The plots of the Station and the school-farm 
are in close proximity to the Agricultural Building, 
and on these the young men taking the course in 
Agriculture put in practise the theories which they 
learn in the class-room. Many important experi- 



RESOURCES AND EQUIPMENT 

ments have been undertaken by the Station, of 
particular interest being those relating to soil 
building, the hybridization of sea-island cotton 
with some of the common short-staple varieties, 
fertilizer tests with potatoes, by which it has been 
shown that it is possible to raise as much as 266 
bushels per acre on light, sandy soil such as that 
comprising the school-lands, while the average 
yield in the same part of Alabama is not more 
than 40 bushels to the acre. 

The next building of importance to be put up 
after the Agricultural Building was the Chapel. 
Another gift from the two New York ladies who 
gave the money for Phelps Hall made possible this 
magnificent structure, admittedly one of the most 
imposing church edifices in the South. It is built 
of brick, 1,200,000 bricks entering into its con- 
struction, all of which were laid by student masons. 
It has stone trimmings, and in shape is a cross, the 
nave with choir having a length of 154 feet, and 
the distance through the transept being 106 feet. 
There are anterooms and a study for the Chaplain 
of the Institute. Including the gallery the seating 
capacity is 2,400. Here all gatherings of the 
school for religious and other purposes are now 
held. The great Tuskegee Negro Conference that 

4i5 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

assembles in February of each year holds its meet- 
ings in the Chapel. Near the Chapel are the Bar- 
racks, two long, roughly constructed one-story 
frame buildings, which are used as sleeping quar- 
ters for young men until they can be better housed 
in permanent buildings. 

Until 1900 the mechanical industries at Tuske- 
gee were conducted in Cassedy Hall and some ad- 
joining frame buildings. In that year they were 
moved into the commodious quarters which the 
then just completed Slater- Armstrong Memorial 
Trades Building furnished. This building is rect- 
angular in shape, is built about a central court, and 
covers more space than any other of the school 
buildings. In its outside dimensions it is 283 feet 
by 315 feet. The front half of the building is two 
stories high, the rear half one story. It is 
constructed of brick, with a tin roof, and, like the 
other larger buildings at the Institute, has steam 
heat and electric light. The money for this build- 
ing came in part from the J. W. and Belinda L. 
Randall Charities Fund of Boston and the stead- 
fast friend of the school, Mr. George Foster Pea- 
body, of New York. There is a tablet in the build- 
ing bearing the following inscription: "This 
tablet is erected in memory of the generosity of 

46 



RESOURCES AND EQUIPMENT 

J. W. and Belinda L. Randall, of Boston, Massa- 
chusetts, from whose estate $20,000 were received 
toward the erection of the building." 

The various shops in this building are fairly 
well equipped with tools and apparatus to do the 
work required of them and to teach the trades 
pursued by the young men. Taking the Machine 
Division as an example, we find it supplied with 
one 18-inch lathe, one 14-inch lathe, one 20-inch 
planer, one 12-inch shaping-machine, one 20-inch 
drill-press, one O^-inch pipe-cutting and threading 
machine, one Brown and Sharpe tool-grinder, one 
sensitive drill-press, and, of course, the customary 
tools that go with these machines. The Electric- 
Lighting Plant is also located in this building. 
Not only does this Division light the buildings and 
grounds of the Institute, but it furnishes light to 
individuals in the town of Tuskegee, which is, at 
present, without other electric-lighting facilities. 

In 1895 the school suffered the loss by fire of its 
well-appointed barn, together with some of its 
finest milch cows. This is the only serious fire 
that has occurred in the history of the school — 
a record almost unparalleled in an establishment 
so large. This fact has led to the school being 
able to get insurance at a lower rate than is gen- 

47 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

erally given to educational institutions. It was 
not until 1900 that the school fully recovered 
from the loss of its barn. In this year friends 
in Brooklyn gave the money with which to rebuild 
the barn on a larger scale. It was deemed wise 
not to put all the money into one building, but to 
erect numbers of smaller ones and locate them so 
as to minimize the fire risk. Accordingly, plans 
were made to build a hennery, creamery, dairy- 
barn, horse-barn, carriage-house, tool-house, pig- 
gery, silos, and slaughter-house. All these build- 
ings were at once put up, and are now giving 
effective service. At present the school owns 47 
horses and colts, 76 mules, 495 cows and calves, 
601 pigs, and 977 fowls of different kinds. These 
animals are all of good stock, some of them being 
thoroughbreds, and are cared for by the students 
who work in the Agricultural Department. 

Dorothy Hall, the building which accommo- 
dates the Girls' Industrial Department, was built in 
1901 on the side of the driveway opposite the Boys' 
Trades Building. This building is the gift of the 
two New York ladies who gave the Chapel and 
Phelps Hall. It serves its purpose admirably, the 
rooms being large, well lighted, and airy. Here are 
conducted all the trades taught to young women, 

48 



RESOURCES AND EQUIPMENT 

including sewing, dressmaking, millinery, laun- 
dering, cooking, housekeeping, mattress-making, 
upholstering, broom-making, and basketry. As 
with the boys' trades, there is a very fair equip- 
ment of accessories for proper teaching. 

In point of time, the next important building 
provided was the Carnegie Library, Mr. Carnegie 
giving $20,000 for the building and furnishings. 
The structure is two stories high, with massive Cor- 
inthian columns on the front. It contains, besides 
the library proper, a large assembly-room, an his- 
torical room, study-rooms, and offices for the Libra- 
rian. The building and the furniture are the prod- 
uct of student labor. 

In 1901, with $2,000 given by Mrs. Quincy A. 
Shaw, of Boston, and $100 contributed by gradu- 
ates of the Institute as a nucleus, the Children's 
House was built. This is a one-story frame build- 
ing of good proportions, in which the primary 
school of the town is taught. It is the practise- 
school for students of the Institute who mean 
to teach. A kindergarten has also been estab- 
lished. 

Mr. Rockefeller has given a dormitory for boys, 
which was completed and occupied last year. The 
lack of adequate sleeping quarters for young men, 

49 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

from which the school has suffered from the begin- 
ning, was very materially supplied in Rockefeller 
Hall, which is a three-story brick structure, furnish- 
ing accommodations for 150 students. This need 
for dormitories has been still further met through 
the gift of three brick cottages by Miss JuHa Em- 
ery, an American now living in London. Two of 
these buildings were finished last year, and young 
men are now living in them. The third is nearing 
completion. All are two stories high, mth a hall 
running through the middle, and contain 40 rooms 
of good size. 

Until last year the offices of the Institute were 
scattered over the grounds wherever room could be 
found. A New York friend, who does not permit 
the use of his name, seeing the need of the school 
for a building in which the offices might be con- 
centrated, thus greatly increasing the efficiency of 
its administrative work, gave $19,000 for this pur- 
pose. The Office Building, completed in the latter 
part of 1903, is the result of this benefaction. It 
is two-and-a-half stories high, and contains the 
offices of the Principal, the Principal's Secretarj^ 
Treasurer, Auditor, Business Agent, Commandant, 
Registrar, and the Post-Office and Savings De- 
partment. 

50 







:s ^ 



— u 



Z ~ 



-,- iO 



RESOURCES AND EQUIPMENT 

The most pretentious building owned by the 
Institute is the Colhs P. Huntington Memorial 
Building, the new home of the Academic Depart- 
ment, which is the gift of Mrs. Huntington as a 
memorial to her husband, who was one of Tuske- 
gee's stanchest supporters. It is built near the 
site of the original building, Porter Hall, which it 
displaces as the center of the academic work of 
the school. The outside dimensions are 1 83 feet by 
103 feet. It is four stories in height. Besides 
recitation-rooms for all the classes, it contains a 
gymnasium in the basement for young women, and 
an assembly-room on the top floor capable of seat- 
ing 800 persons. The finishing is in yellow pine. 
The buildings of the Institute show a steady pro- 
gression in quality of workmanship, materials, and 
architectural design and efficiency, from the rather 
rough, wooden Porter Hall erected by hired work- 
men in 1882 to the stately Huntington Hall built 
by students in 1904. 

Located at different points on the grounds and 
on lots detached are cottages occupied as residences 
by teachers and officers of the Institute. 

The furnishings for all the buildings, as well 
as the buildings themselves, have been made by 
the students in the various shops, who at the same 
5 51 



TUSKEGEE AXD ITS PEOPLE 

time were learning trades and creating articles 
of use. 

The annual cost of conducting the mstitution 
is, in round numbers, $150,000. This may seem 
high, but when certam facts in regard to the work 
are borne in mind it wiU not appear exorbitant. In 
the first place, there are really tlrree schools at 
Tuskegee — a day-school, a night-school, and a 
trade-school. Such a system makes necessary the 
emplo^Tiient of a larger number of teachers than 
would be needed in a purely academic institution 
holding only one session a day. Teachers m the 
trade-school, "^^dth special teclinical training, can be 
obtained only by paj^ng them higher salaries than 
are paid to those who simply teach in the class- 
rooms. 

Secondly, and principally, it is expensive to em- 
ploy student labor to do the work of the school. 
By the time students become faii-ly proficient in 
theii' trades and reach the point where theii' serv- 
ices begin to be profitable, then* time at the insti- 
tution has expired, and a new, untrained set take 
their places, so that the school is constantly work- 
ing on new material or raw recruits. Then, too, 
Tuskegee is still in the formative period of its 
growth as to buildings, laying-out and improve- 

52 



RESOURCES AXD EQUIPMENT 

ment of grounds, and equipment of its various 
departments. When the school's needs in these di- 
rections shall have been met, and the Xegro parent 
shall become able to pay a larger share of the cost 
of educating his children, the expenses to the 
public of running the school may be materially 
reduced. 

^Money for the support of the school is derived 
principally from the following sources, viz.: The 
State of Alabama, $4,500; the John F. Slater 
Fund, $10,000; the General Education Board, 
$10,000; the Peabody Fund, $1,500; the Insti- 
tute's Endowment Fund, $40,000 ; contributions of 
persons and charitable organizations, $8-4,000; a 
total of $150,000. The individual contributions 
are, for the most part, small, and come from per- 
sons of moderate means. Yet the institution an- 
nually receives some large gifts toward its expenses 
from those who are blessed with wealth. 

Especial appeals are made by the institution 
for scholarships of $50 each, in order to pay the 
tuition of students who pro\^de for their other 
expenses themselves largely by their work for the 
school, but who are unable to contribute anj^thing 
toward the item of teaching. These scholarships 
are not turned over to the students, but are held 

53 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

by the institution and assigned for their benefit, 
the aim being to do nothing for students which 
they can do for themselves, and thus help to de- 
velop in them a spirit of manly and womanly self- 
rehance. 

The majority of the large donations, aside 
from those for endowment, have been for build- 
ings and the purchase of additional farm-lands 
made necessary by the enlargement of the school's 
agricultural work. 

What may be regarded as the greatest need of 
the institution is an adequate endowment which 
will put it upon a permanent basis and make its 
future certain. 

A gratifying beginning in the building up of 
an endowment has already been made. It is a fact, 
still well remembered by the public, that Mr. An- 
drew Carnegie has given to the endowment fund 
the princely sum of $600,000. Before that time 
$400,000 had been collected from other sources for 
the same purpose, the largest single contribution 
toward this amount being $50,000 from the late 
CoUis P. Huntington. 

As already stated, the income from the present 
endo^Miient is $40,000, out of which several annu- 
ities are paid. This is only a little more than one- 

54 



RESOURCES AND EQUIPMENT 

fourth of the amount that must be had each year 
to pay the expenses of the school. It will require 
an endowment of at least $3,000,000 to jaeld an 
income adequate to the present needs of the institu- 
tion alone. 



55 



Ill 

THE ACADEMIC AIMS 

By Roscoe Conkling Bruce 

The Negro needs industrial training in emi- 
nent degree, because the capacity for continuous 
labor is a requisite of civilized living; because, in- 
deed, the very first step in social advance must be 
economic; because the industrial monopoly with 
which slavery encompassed black men has fallen 
shattered before the trumpet-blast of white labor 
and eager competition; and, finally, because no in- 
strument of moral education is more effective upon 
the mass of mankind than cheerful and intelligent 
work. These ideas powerfully voiced, together 
with an unusually magnanimous attitude toward 
the white South, have set the man who toiled dog- 
gedly up from slavery, upon a hill apart. These 
things are distinctive of this man; they suggest 
his temper, his spirit, his point of view; but they 
do not exhaust his interests. Similarly, the distinct- 
ive feature of Tuskegee — adequate provision for 
industrial training — sets it upon a hill apart, but 

56 




ROSCOE C. BRUCE. 

Director of tlie Academic Department. 



THE ACADEMIC AIMS 

by a whimsical perversity this major feature is 
in some quarters assumed to be the whole school. 
A moment's reflection shows such a view to be 
mistaken. 

The very industries at Tuskegee presuppose a 
considerable range of academic study. Tuskegee 
does not graduate hoe-hands or plowboys. Agri- 
culture is, of course, fundamental — fundamental 
in recognition of the fact that the Negro popula- 
tion is mainly a farming population, and of the 
truth that something must be done to stem the 
swelling tide which each year sweeps thousands of 
black men and women and children from the sunlit 
monotony of the plantation to the sunless iniquity 
of the slums, from a drudgery that is not quite 
cheerless to a competition that is altogether mer- 
ciless. But the teaching of agriculture, even in 
its elementary stages, presupposes a considerable 
amount of academic preparation. To be sure, a 
flourishing garden may be made and managed by 
bright-eyed tots just out of the kindergarten, but 
how can commercial fertilizers be carefully ana- 
lyzed by a boy who has made no study of general 
chemistry? and how can a balanced ration be ad- 
justed by an illiterate person? Similarly, the girl 
in the laundry does not make soap by rote, but 

57 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

by principle; and the girl in the dressmaking-shop 
does not cut out her pattern by luck, or guess, or 
instinct, or rule of thumb, but by geometry. And 
so the successful teaching of the industries de- 
mands no mean amount of academic preparation. 
In this lies the technical utility of Tuskegee's Aca- 
demic Department. 

Then, too, a public service has been rendered 
by Hampton and Tuskegee in showing that indus- 
trial training — the system in which the student 
learns by doing and is paid for the commodities 
he produces — may be so managed as to educate. 
Among the excellencies of industrial training, I 
would state that the severe commercial test in 
which sentiment plays no part is applied as con- 
sistently to the student's labor as is the force of 
gravitation to a falling body. Here we must keep 
in mind the unavoidably concrete nature of the 
product, whether satisfactory or not; the discipline 
such training affords in organized endeavor; the 
stimulus it offers to all the virtues of a drudgery 
which, though it repel an unusually ardent and 
sensitive temperament, yet wears a precious jewel 
in its head; and an exceptionally keen sense of re- 
sponsibility, since on occasion large amounts of 
money and the esteem of the school. at large and 

58 



THE ACADEMIC AIMS 

the lives of a student's fellows depend upon his cir- 
cumspection and skill. Such training educates. 

But that would indeed be a sorry program 
of education which blinked the fact that the stu- 
dent must be rendered responsive to the nobler 
ideals of the human race, that his eyes must be 
opened to the immanent values of life. If a clear 
title to forty acres and a mule represents the ex- 
treme upper limit of a black man's ambition, why 
call him a man? If a bank-account represents 
the sum of his happiness, that happiness lacks 
humanity. If you would educate for life, you 
must arouse spiritual interests. " The life is more 
than meat, and the body than raiment." Through 
history and literature the Tuskegee student is 
brought to develop a criticism, an appreciation 
of life and the worthier ends of human stri- 
ving. To such a discipline, however elementary, 
the critic will not, I take it, begrudge the name 
" education." 

And if the reader wavers in contemplating the 
problems of trudging Negroes, remember that the 
type of Negro who is a menace to the community 
is he who, in moments of leisure, responds to some- 
what grosser incentives than the poetry of Long- 
fellow, the romance of Hawthorne, and the philoso- 

59 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

phy of Emerson. I would reassure your idealism 
with this counsel of prudence. 

Another question presses: Does the value of 
Tuskegee lie in the fact that the school equips for 
happy lives merely as many persons as are sub- 
jected to the immediate play of its influences; that 
its circle of efficiency includes only as many as are 
enrolled in its various courses? To that question 
every teacher in the school and the mass of gradu- 
ates and students would give an emphatic, a de- 
cisive, No ! The real value of the school lies in the 
service rendered to the people of the communities 
where our young folks go to live and labor. Now, 
work in wood and iron, however assiduously prose- 
cuted, never erected in any human being's heart a 
passion for social service; a finer material must be 
used, a material finer than gold. And so the plan 
and deeper intent of Tuskegee Institute are in- 
capable of realization without the incentives sup- 
plied by history and literature. 

Finally, there is a trade for which the academic 
studies, supplemented by specific normal instruc- 
tion, are the direct preparation — teaching school. 
In the census year there were over 21,000 Negro 
school-teachers in the United States, and in the 
decade 1890-1900 the ratio of increase was more 

60 



THE ACADEMIC AIMS 

than twice as rapid as that of the Negro popula- 
tion; but, nevertheless, there were in 1900 more 
than twice as many teachers in the South per 
10,000 white children as per 10,000 colored. But 
such data can not even approximately indicate the 
relative amounts of teaching enjoyed by these two 
classes of children, for the statistical method can 
not express the incalculable disparity in teaching- 
efficiency. 

A friend of mine — a graduate of Brown Uni- 
versity — was for several years a member of a 
board which corrected the examination-papers of 
Negro candidates for teachers' certificates in a 
certain Southern State where the school facilities 
for the Negro population are exceptionally good; 
but he confessed to me that repeatedly not a paper 
submitted deserved a passing mark, but the board 
was " simply compelled to grant certificates in 
order to provide teachers enough to go around." 
Nor is such a dearth of black pedagogues in the 
least extraordinary. The mission of Tuskegee 
Institute is largely to supply measurably well- 
equipped teachers for the schools — teachers able 
and eager to teach gardening and carpentry as 
well as grammar and arithmetic, teachers who seek 
to organize the social life of their communities 

61 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

upon wholesome principles, tactfully restraining 
grossness and unobtrusively proffering new and 
nobler sources of enjoyment. And so the academic 
studies are wrought into the essential scheme of 
Tuskegee's work. 

Let us inspect with some closeness the organiza- 
tion of the institution. The student-body is funda- 
mentally divided into day-students and night-stu- 
dents. The night-students work in the industries, 
largely at common labor, all day and every day, 
and go to school at night, thus paying their current 
board bills, and accumulating such credits at the 
Treasurer's office as will later defray their expenses 
in the day-school. The day-school students are di- 
vided perpendicularly through the classes into two 
sections, section No. 1 working in the industries 
every other day for three days a week and attend- 
ing academic classes the remaining three days, 
while this situation is exactly reversed for section 
No. 2. Thus every week-day half of each day- 
school class is in the Academic Department, while 
the other half is in the Industrial. This arrange- 
ment induces a wholesome rivalry between the stu- 
dents of the two sections, and eiFects an equal dis- 
tribution of the working force and skill over every 
week-day. 

03 



THE ACADEMIC AIMS 

The day-school students consist, then, of two 
classes of persons: those who, as night-students, 
have accumulated credits sufficient to pay their 
way in the day-school, and those whose families 
are able to pay a considerable part of their ex- 
penses. The earnings of a student in the day- 
school can not be large enough to pay his current 
board bill, but such a student is ordinarily enjoying 
the valuable advantage of working at one of the 
more skilled trades. 

The night-school student, perhaps, because of 
greater maturity in years and experience, may be 
relied upon to apply himself with the utmost dili- 
gence to his academic studies ; so, in much less than 
half the time-allotment, he advances in his academic 
studies about half as fast as the day-school student. 
This schedule did not spring full-fledged from 
the seething brain of any theorist; it is no fatuous 
imitation of the educational practise of some re- 
mote and presumptively dissimilar institution; it 
has, so to say, elaborated itself in adjustment to 
the actual needs of the particular situation. This 
provision boasts not of novelty, but of utility; 
though not ideal, it is practicable. But the central 
fact is that this Tuskegee Plan, while clearly se- 
curing ample time for the teaching of the indus- 

63 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

tries, makes possible no mean amount of aeademic 
study. 

In order more elearly to exhibit the gromids 

of this proposition. 1 shall refer in some slight de- 
tail to the eourse of study in English and in Mathe- 
matics. 

^lathematics represents the group of academic 
studies which possess direct technical value for 
the industries: moreover, it is a pretty good index 
of the grades compreliended in the Academic De- 
partment. In the lowest class in the day-school — 
there is one lower in the night-school — the arith- 
metical tables are mastered, and fractions intro- 
duced and developed with the use of liquid, dry, 
surface, and time measures: whereas in the Senior 
class algebra is studied through quath-atics and 
plane geometry through the " area of polygons." 
That is to say. the lowest day-school class is about 
equivalent to a fourth grade hi the Xorth. and the 
Senior to the tirst or the second year (barrmg the 
foreign languages'! in a Northern high school. 

Despite a much smaller time-allotment, our stu- 
dents, roughly speakmg, keep pace with Xorthern 
students because they are older and somewhat more 
serious, because the course is shortened by the 
elimination of uselessly perplexing topics hi anth- 
er 




y. 



o 



y 



THE ACADEMIC AIMS 

metic like compound proportion and cube root, but 
chiefly because the utihty of mathematics is made 
vivid, and vigorous interest aroused by its immedi- 
ate apphcation in class-room and shop to problems 
arising in the industries. Our students are not 
stuffed like sausages with rules and definitions, 
mathematical or other ; they ascend to general prin- 
ciples through the analysis of concrete cases. 

English serves to represent the group of studies 
that exert a liberalizing influence upon the student, 
that possess a cultural rather than a technical value. 
From oral lessons in language in the lower classes, 
the students advance to a modicum of technical 
grammar in the middle of the course, and hence to 
the rhetoric of the Senior year. Moreover, an un- 
usually large amount of written composition is in- 
sisted upon, the compositions being used not merely 
to discipline the student in chaste feeling, consecu- 
tive thinking, and efficient expression, but also to 
sharpen his powers of observation and to stimu- 
late him to pick out of his daily experience the ele- 
ments that are significant. School readers are used 
in the lower classes because the readers present eco- 
nomically and compactly a whole gamut of literary 
styles and forms. These readers are importantly 
supplemented and gradually superseded by certain 

65 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

classics appropriate to the grades. The classic, 
whether Robinson Crusoe, or Ivanhoe, Rip Van 
Winkle, the House of Seven Gables, or The Mer- 
chant of Venice, presents an artistic whole, and 
permits the students to acquire some sense of lit- 
erary structure. The dominant motive in literary- 
instruction is, perhaps, esthetic, but I am convinced 
that the ethical influence of this instruction at Tus- 
kegee is profound and abiding. 

However liberal the provisions of the academic 
curriculum, the value of the department is finally 
determined by the devotion and ability of the teach- 
ers. Universities and normal schools, and the sea- 
soned staffs of public-school systems — from these 
sources, whether in Massachusetts, California, or 
Tennessee, Principal Washington has gathered a 
force of academic teachers of rare ability and de- 
votion. Eminent for personality rather than for 
method, these teachers are no tyros in method. 
In such hands the excellent features of the cur- 
riculum are raised to the N-th power. 

Finally, academic and industrial teachers are 
animated with a sentiment of solidarity, with an 
esprit de corps, which solves many a problem of 
conflicting duty and jurisdiction, and which must 
impress the student with the essential unity of Tus- 

66 



THE ACADEMIC AIMS 

kegee's endeavor to equip men and women for life. 
The crude, stumbling, sightless plantation-boy who 
lives in the environment of Tuskegee for three or 
four years, departs with an address, an alertness, a 
resourcefulness, and above all a spirit of service, 
that announce the educated man. 



67 



IV 

WHAT GIRLS ARE TAUGHT, 
AND HOW 

By Mrs. Booker T. Washington 

" We wants our baby gal, Mary Lou, to come 
up to Tuskegee to git eddicated and learn seam- 
stress; kase we doesn't want her to work lak we 
is," says the farmer. " I wish to help you plant 
this new industry, broom-making," writes Miss Su- 
san B. Anthony, " because you are trying so ear- 
nestly to teach your girls other means of livelihood 
besides sewing, housework, and cooking." This 
is the problem we have been trying to solve at 
Tuskegee for over twenty years: What handi- 
work can we give our girls with their academic 
training that will better fit them to meet the de- 
mand for skilled teachers in the various avenues 
of the industrial and academic world now opening 
so rapidly to women? 

Learning to sew, with the ultimate end of be- 
coming a full-fledged dressmaker, has been the 

68 




MRS. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON. 
Director of Industries for Girls. 



WHAT GIRLS ARE TAUGHT 

height of ambition with the major part of our girls 
when brought to the institution by their horny- 
handed fathers and mothers fresh from the soil 
of Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, or Florida. 
After the last gripless hand-shake, with the tremu- 
lous, " Take care of yourself, honey," the hard- 
working father and mother have turned their 
faces homeward, visibly aiFected by the separa- 
tion, but resolved to shoulder the sacrifice of the 
daughter's much-needed help on the plantation, 
which oftentimes is all that they are able to con- 
tribute toward her education. 

Not infrequently the girl has begun in the low- 
est class in night-school. Her parents send her 
articles of clothing now and then on Christmas; 
but the largest contributions to her wardrobe come 
from the boxes and barrels sent to the institution 
by Northern friends. She has remained in school 
during the summer vacation, and within two 
years has entered day-school with enough to her 
credit to finish her education. When the happy 
parents return to see their daughter graduated, 
after six or seven long years, their faces are radiant 
because of their realized hopes. When they see 
their white-robed daughter transformed from the 
girl they brought here clad in the homespun of the 

69 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

old days, and receiving her certificate, the tears 
come unchecked, and the moving lips no doubt 
form a whispered prayer. 

In a recent class there was graduated a young 
woman of twenty-five. She came to the school 
in her eighteenth year from the " piney woods "of 
Alabama. She entered the lowest preparatory class 
in night-school and was assigned to work in the 
laundry. She was earnest and faithful in work 
and study. She passed on from class to class, re- 
maining at school to work during the vacation. 
After two years in the laundry she was given an 
opportunity to learn plain sewing in that division. 
She was promoted to the Dressmaking Division at 
the end of the year, and received her certificate 
at the close of two years, after working every 
day and attending night-school. She spent the 
last two years of her school life in the Millinery 
Division, and received her certificate from that di- . 
vision with one from the Academic Department on 
her graduation. During these two years she taught 
the sewing-classes in the night-school of the town of 
Tuskegee. At the outset she bought the materials 
used with $1, left over from the sales of the previ- 
ous year. From this small nest-egg as a starter, 
seventeen girls were supplied with work. But so 

70 



WHAT GIRLS ARE TAUGHT 

efficient and frugal was the young teacher that she 
sold articles, bought supplies for her class, and 
ended the year with $3.45 in the treasury. 

This is just a leaf from the history of one girl. 
Of the 520 girls entering the institution during this 
year (1903-'04), 458 have remained for the full 
scholastic year. About 50 per cent came from 
country districts all over the United States. A 
large majority of them asked to enter the Dress- 
making Division to learn that trade; but after the 
field of industries was opened to their view, they 
were scattered about in the different divisions, a 
very large per cent still leaning to the side of 
dressmaking and millinery. 

Taking into account the number of girls work- 
ing their way through at their trades by day and 
attending night-school, they were distributed as 
follows: Horticulture, 4; training-kitchen, 13; 
housekeeping, 38; dining-room, 29; hospital, 20; 
kitchen-gardening, 8; poultry-raising, 7; tailor- 
ing, 14; dairying, 10; printing, 6; broom-making, 
26; mattress-making, 18; upholstering, 18; laun- 
dering, 54; plain sewing, 72; millinery, 51; dress- 
making, 69. All the girls were required to take 
cooking twice a week and 209 of the girls in the 
normal classes took basketry. 

71 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS- PEOPLE 

As the trades were the great attraction in the 
school curriculum, it was deemed necessary to sep- 
arate the school into two divisions, that students 
might have an opportunity to receive instruction 
equally in the Academic and Industrial Depart- 
ments. This year this scheme worked suc'cessfuUy 
by an arrangement that placed one division in the 
Academic Department on Mondays, Wednesdays, 
and Fridays, while the other was at work, and the 
other division in the Trades Department on Thurs- 
days, Fridays, and Saturdays, while the other was 
in school, and so on regularly. 

Girl life at Tuskegee is strenuous. Though 
study and work are constantly to the fore, char- 
acter is effectively developed with brain and mus- 
cle, and the well-earned recreation-hour comes just 
frequently enough to lend the highest source of 
pleasure. Though the girl usually comes with a 
hazy conception of what the days in school will 
really mean for the ripening of those powers that 
she earnestly intends to use for the best develop- 
ment of herself, there is always a spirit of learning, 
that she may be of service to others. That is what 
counts in the school-days of the average girl in 
her struggle for more light. 

The girl, coming a stranger from her home 
72 



WHAT GIRLS ARE TAUGHT 

in the city or country, is lost in a crowd of girls 
new to dormitory life. New surroundings and 
new conditions are everywhere. New emotions, 
new purposes, new resolutions chase one another 
in her thoughts, and she becomes a stranger to her- 
self only to find her bearings first in her own room. 
Here Maine and California, far-away Washing- 
ton and Central America, meet on common 
ground. Alabama and Georgia alone feel kinship 
from geographical propinquity. 

Beds, one double and one single, chairs, a table, 
mirror, bookcase, wardrobe, wash-stand, and screen, 
all manufactured on the grounds, compose the sim- 
ple furniture of the room. But a few pictures, a 
strip of carpet before each bed, a bright table- 
covering, soon give the room the appearance of 
home, and the untried life has begun. The duty- 
list assigns to each girl her work, and perhaps the 
first lessons in order and system will be fairly 
instituted. 

How many and varied are the associations that 
cluster about the life of the girl in her room, that 
refuge from a day of discouragement in school- 
room or workshop, and a haven of peace during the 
quiet hours of the Sabbath! Roommate meets 
roommate, quick to resent and as quick to forgive — 

73 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

and the petty strife and envy suppressed at birth 
only serve to disciphne them for the coming days. 

Up with the rising bell at five, the duties of the 
room are almost finished when the girl leaves her 
beds to air while she takes her six o'clock breakfast. 
Social amenities, the niceties of table-training, and 
the tricks of speech that betray the sectional birth- 
right, proclaim to the ever-observant table-mates 
the status of each newcomer, and she rises or falls 
in estimation just so far as her metal rings true. 
Thus another element enters into her life, one that 
will prove a potent force in balancing character; 
for the frankly expressed criticisms of schoolmates 
play no small part in the development of students. 

If a girl be one of the forty-five waitresses on 
the eighty-nine tables of the dining-room, she eats 
her breakfast as the other students march out, then 
finishes her room-duties and is ready for work at 
ten minutes of seven wherever she happens to be 
assigned. If she is a dishwasher, she does that 
work, waits for inspection of the table that she has 
set, finishes her room-duty, and is admitted into her 
work division at half past seven. 

Gardening and greenhouse work are becoming 
so attractive through the Nature- Study classes of 
the Academic Department that there are constant 

74 



WHAT GIRLS ARE TAUGHT 

applications for transfers from the sewing divisions 
to this outside work. Equipped in an overall 
gingham apron and sunbonnet of the same ma- 
terial, the girl begins her duties, and no prouder 
girl can be found than she who takes her first bas- 
ket of early spring vegetables to the Teachers' 
Home. 

If the day is to be spent with the whole agri- 
cultural force of girls picking strawberries for the 
tables of the Boarding Department and the local 
market, the stage takes the group out to the patch 
two miles back on the farm — and that is happiness 
unalloyed for the schoolgirl. When she correlates 
her outing with her school work on the day follow- 
ing, there is seen nature at first-hand in the class- 
room. 

If other classmates have been working in the 
Plain-Sewing Division turning out cotton under- 
wear and plain articles of clothing to supply the 
demand of the Salesroom of the institution, the 
lesson in English has a natural, practical bearing, 
arising from the fact that one hour has been spent 
with the theory class of the workroom studying the 
warp and woof of the materials used, perhaps the 
sixth or seventh lesson in a series on cotton, intro- 
duced to the class first in its native heath. Correla- 

75 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

tion comes in wherever it may, and the association 
of ideas obtained in class-room and workroom is 
closely joined. 

The large class of the Dressmaking Division, 
spending the day from seven until half past five 
making the blue uniform dresses, filling orders for 
tailor-made dresses in silk and cloth, measuring, 
drafting, cutting, and fitting, has many a repre- 
sentative in the schoolroom the succeeding day ; and 
still more is the lesson varied by the practical illus- 
trations in Mathematics or the recital of the experi- 
ences of the day in the English classes. 

The girl in the millinery work, shaping forms, 
trimming hats, blending colors, drawing designs, 
studying textiles and fabrics for analysis in her 
theory classes twice during her three days of work, 
finds added inspiration for her three days of class- 
room study. If she is in the Senior class, she 
specializes in geometry on her school-days and me- 
chanical drawing on her work-days. When our 
girl has finished her course in drawing and be- 
gins one of the uniform hats worn by the hundreds 
of girls, she ranks among the first milliners of 
the land in the estimation of the beginners. She 
completes hat after hat, drapes them until the num- 
ber meets the requirement, and then comes her own 

76 



WHAT GIRLS ARE TAUGHT 

creation, a pattern hat, undersized of course, but a 
real dress hat and a thing of beauty. It usually 
finds its way to the old home for her mother and 
neighbors to admire. The commendation that 
comes back to the school is worth its weight in gold. 

But there are backward learners. Some there 
are who excel in embroidery, crocheting, making 
ties and other fancy articles, but who have no apti- 
tude for shaping and trimming hats. They plod 
on, and win at last. Then there is the girl whose 
parents wish her to open a millinery establishment 
in their town. She tries, but finally agrees with 
her long-suffering instructor that she would suc- 
ceed at mattress-making and upholstering instead. 

The work in the Mattress Division begins 
with sheet, pillow-case, table-linen, and comforter- 
making for the endless demands of the lodging di- 
vision of the boys and girls. Pulling shucks for the 
mattress is the next step in advance, and when 
shucks are covered by the cotton layers in the ma- 
king, they prove an excellent substitute for the hair 
filling of a more expensive manufacture, and they 
have an advantage in the matter of cleanliness. 
Covering screen frames made in the Carpentry Di- 
vision for the numerous rooms, caning couches, 
rockers, and stools, help add to the variety of work 

77 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

in the division. The girl is not awarded her cer- 
tificate until she has completed the round of work, 
including the fashioning of a bedroom suite from 
barrels finally covered with neat-figured denim. 
The semiweekly theory classes are not unlike those 
of the plain-sewing division, and the girl is as 
proud of her achievement with needle, hammer, 
and saw as if she were an adept in lighter work. 
When the machinery was introduced for 
Broom-making, the girls looked askance at the ap- 
pliances. But when the broom-corn was delivered 
from the farm, and the pioneer girl broom-maker 
began threshing off the seed in the cleaner, an inter- 
est was evinced that has increased with the knowl- 
edge that the work, study, or manufacture (call it 
what you will) is very productive, especially in 
the confines of the girls' broom-factory at Tuske- 
gee Institute. The poultry-yard bought the seeds 
threshed off the broom-stalks; the hundreds of 
old handles collected cost nothing, and when the 
wiring, stitching, and clipping were finished and 
the girl saw the first broom turned out, there was 
triumph in the fact that the industry was the most 
inexpensive and still the most productive of credit 
of all the girls' industries under the roof of Doro- 
thy Hall. The evolution from the flag-straw 

78 



WHAT GIRLS ARE TAUGHT 

broom used in cabins of the South to the ones now 
completed and labeled, creates the sensation of 
the girl-world in the trades school. The wonders 
brought out in the theory class in connection with 
broom-making were marvelous. Broom-making 
has come to remain with our other girls' industries. 
Work in the Laundry presents another aspect to 
the onlooker, and he doubtless decides on the spur 
of the moment that all is drudgery here. Girls 
are then assorting countless pieces received on 
Mondays from students and teachers. They are 
placing the assorted articles in cages in the base- 
ment. Two boys are filling three washers with 
bed-linen, and in another apartment two girls are 
weighing and measuring materials to make more 
soap to add to the boxes standing in the soap-room. 
Girls up-stairs in the wash-room are busy rubbing 
at the tubs. Some girls are starching, and others 
are sending baskets down on the elevator for girls 
below to hang in the drying-room. Others are in 
the assorting-room putting away clothes-bags into 
numerous boxes. The ironing-room farther on is 
filled with busy workers. Days come during every 
week when time is spent in the study of laundry 
chemistry. Rust and mildew stains and scorching 
are some of the problems of the Laundry, and 

79 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

they find solution. Soap, starch, water, and bluing 
have their composite qualities and are analyzed, 
and no more interesting correlation is there than 
that of the laundry with the class-room. 

Although each Tuskegee girl is expected to 
become proficient in one trade at least, all are 
required to attend the cooking classes. Girls be- 
longing to certain classes are scattered in the vari- 
ous divisions, each busily engaged at her chosen 
trade. At the ringing of the bells in each division 
at stated hours, classes form and pass to the train- 
ing-kitchen for their lesson in cooking. Both 
night-school and day-school girls report every day 
until every girl has received her lesson weekly. 
The normal classes have theory and practise one 
hour each, the preparatory girls one hour weekly 
for their trades. 

This is true also of girls in the normal classes. 
They spend one hour in basketry study, making in 
all three hours away from their individual trades 
each week. Theory is combined with practise, and 
many a fanciful thought is woven in with the reed 
and raffia of the Indian baskets, African purses, 
belts, and pine-needle work-baskets. The shuck 
hats and foot-mats are so foreign in design that 
one often wonders how it were possible to utiHze 

80 



WHAT GIRLS ARE TAUGHT 

the same material in so widely different purposes. 
But our girl is progressive, and not a few instances 
have occurred when one has been informed of the 
presence of a Tuskegee student in a remote country 
district, by the inevitable shuck hat prettily de- 
signed and worn by an utter stranger. So remu- 
nerative has been the work that many have earned 
money enough from the sales of these hats to 
purchase books for the school year and pay their 
entrance fees. 

Few girls work at typesetting. Those learning 
the trade are in the Boys' Trades Building. The 
same is true of the girl tailors, who are as capable 
workers in the trade as the boys. The majority 
of these girls are in night-school, and of late years 
have not earned much for their work. In for- 
mer years the greater body of the students were 
working their way through school, and by their 
labor would earn enough to complete their educa- 
tion in tlie Academic Department and the Indus- 
trial as well. Last year the pay schedule was re- 
duced, and many appeals for assistance came from 
those battling their way through. A young girl 
whose monthly statement warned her that she owed 
the school $15, at the end of the school year wrote 
the following: 

81 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

" Dear Mrs. Washington : I write to inform 
you of the enormous sum that I owe on my board 
bill. I am not satisfied, because I want to earn 
something in life, but it seems that means and op- 
portunity will not permit me. I can't help from 
crying when I think how anxious and willing my 
people are to help me to be something, and yet they 
are unable to help me. 

" My mother has struggled to bring up eight 
o*f us, and now is to the point where she can give 
me no more help, and that leaves me alone to 
be something by myself. I am anxious to enter 
day-school so I may finish my course of study and 
my trade, and at last let my mother see me a good, 
noble woman, who will take care of her. 

" I will thank you very much for your kind- 
ness, if you will look into my board bill and help 
me as soon, and as much, as possible. Yours grate- 
fully." 

As the day girls have put in so many hours 
of work recently under the new system, it elimi- 
nates the necessity of so many night-school girls 
being paid for their work. It is to the interest 
of the school and its day-students that fewer work 
their way through school, and the time has come to 
teach this fact. The boy or girl for a time will 
stagger in the attempt to gain education, but will be 
all the more able, later, to reach the desired goal, 

82 



WHAT GIRLS ARE TAUGHT 

All girls are taught housekeeping incidentally 
in the care of their rooms ; but the number assigned 
to the regular division yearly are instructed in all 
branches of home industry. The course covering 
two years is mapped out thoroughly, and when 
the girls reach the Senior class, all have their turn 
at housekeeping in the Practise Cottage of four 
rooms. No girl is graduated from the school with- 
out the finishing touch of the little home. Market- 
ing, the planning of meals, table-setting, the care of 
table- and bed-linen, dusting, sweeping, and every- 
thing else pertaining to a well-kept house, are 
taught by the teacher in domestic science who is in 
charge of the training-kitchen where the senior girls 
received their first lessons in cookery. The young 
housekeepers have reached the stage of efficiency 
when they may prepare a meal for a distinguished 
guest. 

A red-letter day in the history of the cottage 
came when a warm-hearted and much-beloved 
trustee of the institution expressed a wish to dine 
with the girls during one of his visits to the in- 
stitution. The flowers that graced the small table 
on this day were brought by the distinguished 
visitor, who came from a stroll in the " piney " 
woods. The girls, apprehensive of their success 
'^ 83 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

in preparing the dinner for one with so cultured 
a palate, felt visibly relieved on the disappearance 
of the roast, the vegetables, and the dessert. The 
corn bread was voted the best ever eaten, and the 
dinner, as a whole, a delicious preparation. If 
ever, in the years to come, any of the four forgets 
the kindly heart that made all forget station or 
condition, " the right hand will forget its cunning." 

Days pass all too quickly in work and study. 
After the supper at six, the girls in the normal 
classes go to their rooms or the Carnegie Library 
for study, the girls in the preparatory classes go 
to the study-hour, and those who have been work- 
ing at the trades during the day spend two hours 
in night-school covering half as much ground as 
those in day-school, and consequently spend a 
longer period in school. At the ringing of the bell 
at half past eight all the girls form in line to pass 
to the Chapel for prayers. 

School and work over for the day, every girl 
seems to lose her personality in her blue braided 
uniform, with her red tie and turnover on week- 
day evenings at Chapel, and her white ribbon on 
Sundays when she passes the platform as she 
marches by out of the Chapel to her room. Her 
carriage at least identifies her class-standing, and 

84 



WHAT GIRLS ARE TAUGHT 

one may easily note the difference in the manner 
of her who has newly arrived and another who 
has been in school with the advantages of several 
years. 

Friday afternoons mark an hour for lectures, 
girls' clubs, and circle entertainments. Saturday 
evenings are spent optionally. Time for class 
gymnastics or sewing or swimming is always spent 
pleasantly on schedule time during the week. Our 
girl attends the Christian Endeavor Sunday morn- 
ings at nine, Chapel at eleven, Sunday-school at 
one, and, after dinner is out of the way, spends 
the enforced quiet hour in her room from three 
until four o'clock reading. The band concert on the 
lawn calls all to listen, some walking, some sitting 
on the seats on the green, but all presenting a pic- 
turesque appearance in the blue skirts and white 
waists of the spring season. 

Thus the days and weeks pass, mingled with 
the sorrows and joys of school-life, its encourage- 
ments and disappointments. The months and sea- 
sons come and go, and, before one is scarcely aware 
of the fact, the Commencement Week is here and 
the hundreds of young people whose lives have 
come in touch with one another pass on to their 
homes. Some go out as helpful workers, giving 

85 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

useful service to others; many will return to com- 
plete the course begun, but all, we hope, will give 
out the light that will not fail. Some are workers 
with ten talents, some with five, some with one ; but 
all, we trust, will be using them for the upbuilding 
of the kingdom here on earth. 



86 



HAMPTON INSTITUTE'S RELATION 
TO TUSKEGEE 

By Robert R. Moton 

In his eloquent address in May, 1903, at the 
memorial services of General Samuel Chapman 
Armstrong, Founder, and for twenty-five years 
Principal, of Hampton Institute, Dr. Booker T. 
Washington said: "A few nights ago, while I 
was driving through the woods in Alabama, I dis- 
cerned in the distance a large, bright fire. Driving 
to it, I soon found out that by the glow of this 
fire several busy hands were building a nice frame 
cottage, to replace a log cabin that had been the 
abode of the family for a quarter of a century. 
That fire was lighted by General Armstrong 
years ago. What does it matter that it was 
twenty-five years passing through Hampton to 
Tuskegee and through the Tuskegee Conference 
to that lonely spot in those lonely woods! It was 
doing its work very effectually all the same, and 
will continue to do it through the years to come." 

The relations existing between Tuskegee Insti- 
87 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

tute and Hampton Institute are much like those 
existing between a son and the father who has 
watched the growth and development of his child 
through the formative transition periods of his 
youth, and looks with pride upon him as he stands 
forth in the full bloom of manhood, enumerating 
successes already achieved, with large promise of 
greater and more far-reaching achievements for 
the immediate future. The child never reaches 
the point where he does not seek the approval and 
blessing of the parent, or where he refuses to ac- 
cept advice and assistance if needed. 

In the early days of Tuskegee Mr. Washing- 
ton turned naturally and properly to Hampton 
for anything that was needed, as he so beautifully 
and repeatedly testifies in his autobiography, Up 
from Slavery. For a long time the men and 
women who helped him were from Hampton, more 
than fifty such having been there. 

While there is a large number of Hampton 
graduates in the Industrial Departments of Tuske- 
gee, the teaching force, especially in the Academic 
Department, represents a dozen or more of the 
best colleges and universities in this country. The 
same may be said of Hampton. 

Up to about eight or ten years ago we at 
88 



HAMPTON INSTITUTE 

Hampton spoke of Tuskegee as a small Hamp- 
ton, but " small " no longer describes Tuskegee, 
and I doubt seriously if large Hampton would 
be altogether proper. 

While Tuskegee was founded on the Hampton 
plan, and has consistently followed that plan as 
far as possible, and while these two great " Indus- 
trial Universities " are very much alike in spirit 
and purpose, they are, on the other hand, very 
dissimilar in external appearance as well as in in- 
ternal conduct. Each sends out into the benighted 
districts of the South, and Hampton also into 
the Indian country of the West, hundreds of men 
and women who are living influences of civilization 
and Christianity in their deepest and most far- 
reaching sense, adding much to the solution of 
the perplexing questions with which the nation 
has to deal. 

The conditions surrounding the two schools 
have necessitated certain differences in their evo- 
lution. The personnel of the two institutions is 
different. Hampton has always been governed 
and controlled by white people, and its teachers 
have come from the best families of the North. 
Tuskegee was founded by a Negro, and its teach- 
ers and officers have come from the best types of 

89 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

the American Negro and from the best schools 
opened to them. Hampton deals with a different 
class of student material, including the Indian, 
who is almost as different in traits and character- 
istics from the Negro as he is in feature and origin. 
These are, in a sense, external differences which 
must of necessity affect the character and internal 
machinery of the two institutions. 

This is no reflection upon either school, for 
each is unique and complete in its way, and any 
marked ethnic change in the management of either 
would be unfortunate. Hampton is a magnificent 
illustration of Anglo-Saxon ideas in modern edu- 
cation. Tuskegee, on the other hand, is the best 
demonstration of Negro achievement along dis- 
tinctly altruistic lines. In its successful work for 
the elevation and civilization of the children of 
the freedmen, it is also the most convincing evi- 
dence of the Negroes' ability to work together with 
mutual regard and mutual helpfulness. When 
Tuskegee was started there was a serious question 
as to whether Negroes could in any large measure 
combine for business or educational purposes. 
The only cooperative institutions that had been 
successful among them were the Church and, per- 
haps, the secret societies. 

90 



HAMPTON INSTITUTE 

In material development, in the rapid and 
steadily improving accession of student material, 
in enlarging powers for greater usefulness, in in- 
fluence upon the educational methods of the 
country and the civilized world, and in the sym- 
pathy and respect it has gained for the Negro 
through the writings and speeches of its Founder 
and Principal, the Tuskegee Institute has without 
doubt passed beyond the expectations of those who 
were most sanguine about its future. 

The Tuskegee torch, from the Hampton fire 
started so many years ago by General Armstrong, 
has spread and is spreading light to thousands of 
homes and communities throughout the South, and 
is the greatest pride and glory of Hampton Insti- 
tute, and a constant source of inspiration and en- 
couragement to the devoted men and women who 
have always made Hampton's work possible. 

At the conclusion of an address in a Northern 
city in the interest of Hampton, in which I had 
quoted Dr. Curry's saying that, " if Hampton had 
done nothing more than to give us Booker Wash- 
ington, its history would be immortality," a New 
England lady of apparently good circumstances 
and well informed, in the kindness of her heart, 
took me to task for distorting my facts in saying 

91 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

that Tuskegee had grown out of Hampton. She 
was sure that it was just the other way — that 
Hampton was an offshoot of Tuskegee. She cer- 
tainly could not have paid a higher tribute to 
Hampton, and likewise to Tuskegee. 

For the past few years Mr. Washington's de- 
served popularity and prominence have brought 
Tuskegee conspicuously and constantly before the 
public. This has in no sense been a disadvantage 
to Hampton, but has been a distinct gain in ena- 
bling Hampton to point to the foremost man of 
the Negro race, and to the largest and most inter- 
esting and in many ways the best-managed institu- 
tion of the race, as the best and most conspicuous 
product of the peculiar kind of education for 
which Hampton stands. 

While Tuskegee is, perhaps, in many respects, 
better known than Hampton, its antecedent, 
Hampton, is without doubt much better known and 
more highly thought of because of the existence of 
Tuskegee. 

Tuskegee in its present state of development 
would be one of the marvels of the age, even if 
the personality of its Principal were left out of 
consideration. 

Two thousand Negroes who are scarcely a 
92 



HAMPTON INSTITUTE 

generation removed from bondage, being trained, 
disciplined, controlled by 200 or more of the same 
racial type; 2,000 Negroes being educated, morally, 
industrially, intellectually; an industrial university 
with 100 large buildings well equipped and beauti- 
fully laid-oif grounds, with a hum and bustle of in- 
dustry, scientifically and practically conducted by 
a race considered as representing the lowest ethnic 
type, upsetting the theories of many well-meaning 
people who believe the Negroes incapable of main- 
taining themselves in this civilization, incapable of 
uniting in any successful endeavor without being 
under the direct personal control of the dominant 
Aryan — this is one of the greatest achievements of 
the race during its years of freedom. 

Hampton, though a dozen years older, the pio- 
neer in industrial education, equally well equipped, 
quite as well conducted, doing as great a work in 
the elevation of the races it represents, and holding 
just as important a place in the scheme of modern 
education, is not so interesting or so wonderful, be- 
cause its conception and execution are the product 
of Aryan thought and Aryan ingenuity. New 
ideas, new discoveries, new inventions and organi- 
zations, new methods and new institutions, have 
been conspicuous among the white race for a thou- 

93 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

sand years. General Armstrong's wisdom and 
foresight were truly wonderful, as indeed are also 
those of his worthy successor, Dr. H. B. Frissell, 
under whose direction the school's influence and 
usefulness have steadily increased, and along lines 
that General Armstrong would approve; but had 
Hampton been founded and brought to its present 
state of proficiency by a Negro, and its dominating 
force been of the African race, it would be a more 
wonderful and interesting institution. In other 
words, the white race has long since passed its 
experimental period. It now is the standard of 
measurement for all other races. The Negro's 
achievements, then, are considered largely with 
reference to the impression which they make upon 
the race of whose civilization and government he 
is a part. 

Tuskegee, therefore, stands out more promi- 
nently than Hampton as an exponent of industrial 
education, and has been more severely questioned 
because of the imagined disloyalty in a Negro's 
aggressive attitude for this particular kind of edu- 
cation for his race. There are people of both races 
who, while they do not on the whole oppose Hamp- 
ton and Tuskegee in their educational methods, 
are honestly afraid that, because of the growing 

94 




w 



HAMPTON INSTITUTE 

importance and influence of these two schools and 
others of a similar kind, the idea will be thoroughly 
established that the Negro needs only and is capa- 
ble only of the narrowest sort of industrial train- 
ing — such as is represented by the " rule-of-thumb 
carpenter " and the " one-suspender mule-driver," 
who work by rule and rote rather than by principle 
and method, not in the slightest degree compre- 
hending the science underlying the work in which 
they are engaged, whose mathematical knowledge 
is bounded by " the distance between two corn or 
cotton rows." 

To fix such an idea in the minds of the people 
of this country — which is not likely to be done — 
would, no doubt, be disastrous to us for genera- 
tions to come, and make it much more easy than it 
is now to deprive the Negro of the civil and po- 
litical rights which are guaranteed by the Consti- 
tution. It would, without question, defeat the 
objects for which Hampton and Tuskegee have 
persistently stood, and for which they have ever 
worked and are still very successfully working. 

No one familiar with the curricula of these two 
schools would for a moment raise such a question. 
General Armstrong saw, as few people did, the 
moral and intellectual value of industrial training 

95 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

aside from its merely economic importance. He 
founded a school on an entirely different basis 
from any that had been known before — the basis 
of character-building through practical education, 
industrial training, and self-help. 

During the thirty-six years of its history, 
Hampton has sent into the world about 1,200 grad- 
utes and 5,000 undergraduates, many of whom 
have taken with them the spark that has started 
many other Hamptons, large and small, among the 
Negroes of the South and the Indians of the West. 
Hampton's success, and indeed the success of any 
institution, depends not so much upon the scholastic 
attainments of its pupils as upon the work that 
those who have received its instruction accomplish. 
Hampton glories, and justly, in the loyalty of its 
graduates and in the faithfulness with which they 
have inculcated and exemplified the traditions and 
principles for which it stands. Hampton glories in 
Tuskegee, because Tuskegee has started in so many 
communities the spark of true life and real civiliza- 
tion; in the impetus and inspiration it has given, 
so beautiful and so perfect a consummation of 
the prophetic vision of Hampton's founder. 

Can the relations between the two institutions 
be better stated than in the words of their two 

96 



HAMPTON INSTITUTE 

founders? After a visit to Tuskegee, General 
Armstrong said: " The Tuskegee school is a won- 
derful work and Mr. Washington is a remarkable 
man. He has carried out the idea of training the 
head, hand, and heart in a wonderfully complete 
and perfect way. This school is very much like 
the one at Hampton, and any one can recognize 
the similarity, but he has made many improvements. 
It is not merely an imitation. It is the Hampton 
Idea adapted and worked into a most sensible and 
efficient application to the needs of the Alabama 
Negroes." In the same memorial address at Gen- 
eral Armstrong's funeral from which I quoted at 
the beginning of this paper, Mr. Washington said, 
" The rose I place on his grave is his work at Tus- 
kegee." 

Hampton and Tuskegee, striving along com- 
mon lines for common ends, intimate in relation- 
ship, interdependent, each frankly criticizing and 
freely advising, each profiting by the failures bf 
the other, each benefiting by the successes of the 
other, are both working as best they may toward 
that " far-off divine event to which the whole crea- 
tion moves." 



97 



PART II 

AUTOBIOGRAPHIES BY 
GRADUATES OF THE SCHOOL 






A COLLEGE PRESIDENT'S STORY 
By Isaac Fisher 

I WAS born January 18, 1877, on a planta- 
tion called Perry's place, in East Carroll Par- 
ish, Louisiana, and was the sixteenth and last child 
of my parents. My early childhood was unevent- 
ful, save during the year 1882, when, by reason 
of the breaking of the Mississippi River levee near 
my home, I was compelled, together with my par- 
ents, to live six months in the plantation cotton- 
gin, fed by the Federal Government and by the 
determination never to live so close to the "Big 
Muddy" again; and during 1886, in which year 
my mother died. 

Up to this latter year my life had been nothing 
more than that of the average Negro boy on a 
cotton- farm. While I had been too young to 
feel the burden of farm-life toil, I had not been 
spared a realization of the narrowness and the 
dwarfing tendencies of the lives which the Negro 
farmers and their families were living, and, in 
my heart, I cursed the farm and all its environs 

101 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

as being in verity an inferno on earth. A broader 
knowledge of the causes which operated to produce 
the cheerless life against which my child-nature 
rebelled, and a clearer insight into the possibilities 
of rural life, have altered this early impression ; and 
to-day I find myself thinking some thoughts rela- 
tive to the life lived near to nature's heart which 
are not at all complimentary to the bustle and 
selfishness of city life. 

The death of my mother furnished the oppor- 
tunity to leave the farm and go to a city; and I 
took advantage of this, going to Vicksburg, Miss., 
to live with an older sister. I had always desired 
to go to school, and had spent four terms of six 
months each in the country school near my home; 
but for some reason, which I can not now remem- 
ber, I attended the city school in Vicksburg but 
one year, after which I was employed as a cake- 
baker's assistant and bread-wagon driver. A short 
time before this I was a house-boy in the city. I 
was, at the time of my employment in the bakery, 
an omnivorous reader of the newspapers, and, in 
fact, of all kinds of literature; but my hours of 
labor at both places were so long and incessant 
that I found it almost impossible to do any read- 
ing during my employment at either place. 

102 



A COLLEGE PRESIDENT'S STORY 

Finally I saw and took advantage of an op- 
portunity to secure employment with the drug firm 
of W. H. Jones & Brother; and I count my work 
in this store, and with these gentlemen as em- 
ployers, as the turning-point in my life, because 
there my work demanded some intelligence above 
the average. I had some chance to study, and in 
addition, when it was found by these white men 
that I loved to read, all magazines, newspapers, 
and drug journals, not needed by the firm and 
the physicians whose offices were with them, were 
given to me. I never make any mention of my 
life in Vicksburg without mentioning, in particu- 
lar, Mr. W. H. Jones; for not only was he a 
kind and considerate employer, but I learned from 
his actions that a white man could be kind and 
interested in a Negro — a fact which no amount 
of reasoning could have driven into my stubborn 
understanding previous to that time. 

There came a time when I learned that at the 
Tuskegee Institute, in Alabama, any poor Negro 
boy who was willing to work could pay for all 
his education in labor. To hear was to act. I 
wrote to Mr. Washington, asking if my informa- 
tion was correct. The affirmative answer came 
at once. It was the middle of August, and school 

103 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

began in September, but I determined to be pres- 
ent at the opening of the school year. I was then 
a boy wearing short trousers, but I immediately 
set about preparing to deliver a " lecture " to help 
raise funds for my trip. With a knowledge 
of the subject, and an assurance which I have never 
since assumed, I spoke to a large audience in Vicks- 
burg on the question. Will America Absorb the 
Negro? I settled the question then and there to 
my own satisfaction, even if I did not convince the 
nation that my affirmative conclusion was rational. 
The " lecture " netted me my fare to Tuskegee, 
with a few dollars over, and brought me from Rev. 
O. P. Ross, pastor of the African Methodist Epis- 
copal Church in Vicksburg, the offer of a scholar- 
ship at Wilberforce College at the expense of his 
church. I respectfully declined the oifer, feeling 
that I did not want to bind myself to any particular 
denomination by accepting so great a gift; but I 
have always felt very kindly toward that church 
ever since. 

My first glimpse of Mr. Washington was had 
in the depot in Montgomery, Ala., where a friend 
and I, on our way to Tuskegee, had changed 
cars for the Tuskegee train. Two gentlemen came 
into the waiting-room where we were seated, one 

104 



A COLLEGE PRESIDENT'S STORY 

a man of splendid appearance and address, the 
other a most ordinary appearing individual, we 
thought. The latter, addressing us, inquired our 
destination. Upon being told that we were going 
to Tuskegee, he remarked that he had heard that 
Tuskegee was a very hard place — a place where 
students were given too much work to do, and 
where the food was very simple and coarse. He 
was afraid we would not stay there three months. 
We assured him that we were not afraid of hard 
work, and meant to finish the course of study at 
Tuskegee at all hazards. He then left us. Very 
soon after, the gentleman who had so favorably 
impressed us, and whom we afterward found to 
be the capable treasurer of the Tuskegee Institute, 
Mr. Warren Logan, came back and told us that 
our interlocutor was none other than the Presi- 
dent of the school to which we were going. 

Arriving at Tuskegee, I found what it meant 
to be in a school without a penny, without as- 
surance of help from the outside, and wholly de- 
pendent upon one's own resources and labor; and 
I found further that in the severe, trying process 
through which Mr. John H. Washington, super- 
intendent of industries, brother of Mr. Booker T. 
Washington, and familiarly though very respect- 

105 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

fully known to the students as " old man John," 
put all students who offered to work for their edu- 
cation, only the fittest, and the fittest of the fit at 
that, survived. 

I was assigned work with the resident phy- 
sician, a very efiicient woman doctor from Phila- 
delphia; and I have a recollection, by no means 
dim, that when this good woman made her monthly 
report to the treasurer, she could write, " Health 
Department to Isaac Fisher, Dr,, $12.50 — value 
received." Every morning before breakfast it was 
my duty to go to the rooms of six hundred young 
men to see if any were ill, have those who were, 
carried to the hospital, report all such to four de- 
partments, take meals to those confined in the hos- 
pital, attend to all their wants, keep their build- 
ing heated and supplied with fuel, and — But 
space will not permit the full catalogue of duties. 
At the end of such a day's work I would attend 
the night-school during its session of two hours. 

Desiring to learn a trade, I asked permission 
to enter the printing-office for the next year. This 
was not granted until it was found that I would 
not leave the school during the summer, but would 
remain and work until the beginning of the next 
school year. Accordingly, when my second year 

106 



A COLLEGE PRESIDENT'S STORY 

began I entered the printing-office as an appren- 
tice. During that year I suffered actual want and 
privation in the matter of shoes and clothes; but 
later came under the notice of Mrs. Booker T. 
Washington, who made arrangements by which I 
could procure some of the second-hand clothes and 
shoes sent from the North to the school for just 
such cases. At the end of this year my health, as a 
result of my work in the office, was so poor that 
the resident physician recommended my removal 
therefrom. To the surprise of Mr. J. H. Wash- 
ington, I asked to be transferred to the farm; 
and I think I proved while working on the school- 
farm that I was sincere when I said that I would 
work wherever I was placed. 

It was during this summer that Mr. Booker T. 
Washington showed me that I had come favorably 
under his notice. At one of the weekly prayer- 
meetings, conducted by the chaplain, Mr. Penney, 
and at which Mr. Washington was present, I made 
some remarks relative to the agnosticism of the 
late Col. Robert G. Ingersoll. The following day 
Mr. Washington sent for me, inquired my age 
and class in the school, and then said some very 
kind things about the talk which I had made in 
the prayer-meeting, and made me a conditional 

107 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

promise of his friendship, which, despite my oft- 
proven unworthiness, he has ever since given me 
in unstinted measure. After that second year 
my hardships as a " work-student " were practi- 
cally over. 

In my third year I entered the day-school, 
working one day in every week and every other 
Saturday, and going to school the remainder of 
the time. While the school made compulsory the 
earning of some money on the part of all students, 
it set no maximum limit on the amounts to be 
earned. I elected to earn as much as I could under 
the circumstances, earning, by reason of the many 
odd jobs which I did, often as much as $20 per 
month, going to school every day in the meantime. 
The average amount usually earned is $5 and $6 
per month. At one time I worked eight days 
per month on the farm, sent notes of the school to 
127 Negro newspapers, cleaned one laboratory 
every day, played in both the brass band and the or- 
chestra, blew the bugle for the battalion, and 
taught two classes in the night-school, for each of 
which duties I received pay; and even though I 
broke down under the accumulated strain soon 
after my graduation, I carried my point and com- 
pleted the course of study as I had planned. 

108 



A COLLEGE PRESIDENT'S STORY 

In my fourth year I won the Trinity Church 
(Boston) Prize of $25 for oratory; and in my 
senior year won the Loughridge Book Prize for 
scholarship, and also the valedictory of my class, 
graduating in 1898. 

I was immediately sent to the Schofield School, 
a Quaker institution for Negroes in Aiken, S. C, 
to organize farmers' conferences on the order of 
those conducted by the Tuskegee Institute, and to 
serve as a teacher in the school. After one year's 
service in that position Mr. Washington asked 
me to accept the position of Assistant Northern 
Financial Agent for Tuskegee. I accepted, and 
remained two years in New England, helping to 
interest friends in my alma mater. At my own 
request I was transferred from the Northern work 
to the South, being assigned this time to the Negro 
Conference work in Alabama. Before beginning 
this work I was married to a Tuskegee girl, Miss 
Sallie McCann. 

Within a few months a principal was needed 
for the Swayne Public School of Montgomery, 
Ala., and this in the middle of the school year. 
Mr. Washington reconmiended me for the work, 
and I was elected to the position. At the close of 
the term I went to New York to study the public- 

109 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

school system of that city as far as possible. While 
there I was reelected principal of the Swayne 
School, and a notice of the election reached me one 
morning. Three hours later I received a letter 
from the secretary of the University of Arkansas 
(white) informing me that my name had been pre- 
sented to the board of trustees of that institution, 
and I had been elected to the presidency of the 
State Branch Normal College at Pine Bluff, Ark. 
I was not a candidate for the position, but seeing 
in it an opportunity for greater usefulness, I ac- 
cepted the position in my twenty-fifth year, and 
have just been reelected to serve a third term as 
president of the school. The Branch Normal Col- 
lege was established in 1875 as one of the Land 
Grant colleges, and has a property valuation of 
$100,000. 

Over my desk hangs a picture of the Principal 
of Tuskegee ; and in my desk are views of the insti- 
tution which he has built. But these may be re- 
moved. In the book of my memory and in the se- 
cret chambers of my heart I have enshrined the two 
names which, with God and the parents now on the 
other side of the Great Divide, have shaped and 
given direction to my whole life — Tuskegee and 
Booker T. Washington. 

110 



11 

A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'S STORY 

By William H. Holtzclaw 

I WAS born in Randolph County, Ala., near the 
little town of Roanoke. The house in which I first 
saw the light — or that part of it which streamed 
through the cracks, for there were no windows — 
was a little log cabin 12 by 16 feet. I know 
very little of my ancestry, except that my mother 
was the daughter of her mother's master, born 
in the daj^s of slavery, and up to 1864 herself 
the slave of her half-brother. She was born in 
the State of Georgia. My father was born in 
Elmore County, Ala. He never knew his father, 
but remembered his mother and eleven brothers. 
]My mother was married twice before she married 
my father. She married first at the age of fifteen. 
I am the fifth of fifteen children, and my father's 
oldest child. Neither my father nor my mother 
could read or write; mother could get a little out 
of some pages of the Bible by spelling each word 
as she came to it. 

Ill 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

My early years were spent on a farm. When 
only four years old I was put to such work as I 
could do — such as riding a deaf and blind mule, 
while my brother plowed him in order to make 
him go forward, for he cared nothing for assault 
from the rear. We worked for a white man for 
one-fourth of the crop. He furnished the stock, 
land, and seeds, and we did the work, although he 
was supposed to help. He furnished money to 
" run " us at fifteen to a hundred per cent, ac- 
cording to the time of the year. He grew wealth- 
ier; we grew, if possible, poorer. Before I was 
fifteen years old I instinctively felt the injustice 
of the scheme. When the crop was divided he got 
three loads of corn to our one, and somehow he 
always got all the cotton: never did a single bale 
come to us. 

Those were hard times for us; for it must be 
remembered that this was in the days of recon- 
struction and the Ku-Klux-Klan, and if to this 
be added the fact that my father, a young and 
inexperienced man, had started out with a family 
of six on his hands, some idea of the situation may 
be had. I can recall having been without food 
many a day, and the pangs of hunger drove me 
almost to desperation. But mother and father 

112 



A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'S STORY 

would come late at night from a day of depressing 
toil and excruciating inward pain, the result of 
their inability to relieve our suffering, and pacify 
us for the night with such things as they had been 
able to get. When I awoke the next morning they 
were gone again on a food mission. 

Hunger would sometimes nearly drive us mad. 
My brother and I were given a meal of pie-crusts 
from the white folks' table one day, and as we 
ate them, Old Buck, the family dog, who resembled 
an emaciated panther, stole one of the crusts. It 
was our dinner. We loved Old Buck, but we had 
to live first; so my brother lit on him, and a battle 
royal took place over that crust. Brother was los- 
ing ground, so I joined in, and, coming up from 
the rear, we conquered and saved the crust, but 
not till both of us were well scratched and bitten. 

I was put to school at the age of six. Both 
mother and father were determined that their chil- 
dren should be educated. School lasted two months 
in the year — July and August. The schoolhouse 
was three miles from our house, but we walked 
every day, my oldest sister carrying me astride 
her neck when I gave out. Sometimes we had an 
ear of roasted green corn in our basket for dinner, 
or a roasted sweet potato, but more often simply 

113 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

persimmons, or fruit and nuts picked from our 
landlord's orchard and from the forest. 

When cotton began to open, in the latter part 
of August, the landlord wanted us to stop school 
and pick cotton, and I can distinctly remember 
how my mother used to outgeneral him by slipping 
me off to school through the woods, following me 
through the swamps and dark places, with her hand 
on my back, shoving me on till I was well on 
the way, and then returning to try to do as much in 
the field that day as she and I together would be ex- 
pected to do. When the landlord came to the quar- 
ters early to look for me, my mother would hide 
me behind the cook-pot and other vessels. When 
I was a little older I had to play my part on the 
farm. Mother now worked another scheme. I 
took turns with my brother at school and at the 
plow. What he learned at school on his school-day 
was taught to me at night, and vice versa. In this 
way we got a month of schooling each during the 
year, and got the habit of home study. 

Our family was increasing rapidly, and to 
keep the children even roughly clothed and fed 
was about all that could be done under the circum- 
stances. When the school exhibition took place and 
every girl was expected to have a white dress and 

114 



A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'S STORY 

every boy a pair of white pantaloons, my mother 
was often put to her trumps to get these things. 
Father would not trouble himself about them, 
as he said they were useless. . But the teacher said 
they were necessary, and his word was law and 
gospel with most parents in our community. An 
exhibition was near at hand and three of us had 
no white pantaloons. Mother manipulated every 
scheme, but no cloth yet to make them! Finally 
the day arrived, but not till mother solved the prob- 
lem by getting up before dawn that morning and 
making three pairs of white pantaloons for us 
out of her Sunday petticoat. Mother was of a 
determined disposition, and seldom failed to solve 
a domestic problem. We looked about as well 
as other people's children in that exhibition — at 
least we thought we did, and that was sufficient. 
But it must be remembered that there is just so 
much cloth, and no more, in a petticoat. So our 
suits were necessarily made tight. I had to be 
careful how I got around on the stage. 

I usually had different teachers every year, as 
one teacher seldom cared to stay at a place for 
more than a session. I well remember the disad- 
vantages of this custom. One teacher would have 
me in a Third Reader and fractions, another in 
9 115 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

Fifth Reader and addition. When I reached the 
point where the teacher ordered me to get a United 
States History, the book-store did not have one, but 
sold me a biography of Martin Luther instead, 
which I studied for some time, thinking that I was 
learning something about the United States. I did 
not know what the United States was or was like, 
although I had studied geography and knew some- 
thing about South America and Africa; and my 
teacher did not tell me. My teacher at this time was 
a good man, but that was all. Many of my teachers 
knew very little, but I thought they knew every- 
thing, and that was sufficient, for their teach- 
ing was wholesome. I remember one or two, how- 
ever, whose work, under the circumstances, would 
be hard to match even now. 

As soon as I was old enough I was hired out 
for wages, to help support the family. My school 
opportunities were now almost gone, and for this 
reason, together with a desire for more excite- 
ment, I began to grow restless on the farm. I 
grew morose. I pulled myself loose from all pub- 
lic functions, ceased to attend any pubHc meetings, 
save regular monthly church meetings, and betook 
me to the woods, where I read everything I could 
get. It was during this time that accidentally, I 

116 



A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'S STORY 

may say providentially, I got hold of a book con- 
taining the life of Ignacius Sancho; and I have 
never read anything that has given me more in- 
spiration. I wish every Negro boy in the land 
might read it. I read and worked, and helped to 
support the family. I had vowed that as soon 
as I was twenty-one I would leave for some 
school and there stay until I was educated. I 
was already a little in advance of the young 
people in my community, so I spent my long win- 
ter evenings teaching a little night-school to which 
the young people of the neighborhood came. 

AU my life up to this time my father had 
been working as a tenant. He now determined 
to strike out for himself — buy stock and rent land. 
The mule he bought soon became hopelessly lame 
in the back. It was a peculiar sort of illness. 
Once upon his feet, he could work all day without 
difficulty, but when he lay down at night he had 
to be helped up the following morning. During 
that entire season the first thing I heard each 
morning was the voice of my father, " Children, 
children, get up! let's go and help up the old mule." 
A neighbor also was called in each morning to 
help. Toward the end of the season the school 
opened. We were so anxious to enter, that we 

117 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

determined to help the old mule. My brother and 
I hitched ourselves to the plow, and sister did the 
plowing. Early each morning we plowed in this 
way, and soon finished the crop and entered the 
little school. 

My father and some others had built a little 
school out of pine poles which they had cut, and 
hauled to the spot on their shoulders. The teacher, 
a married man, easily won all his pupils, but I 
could never forgive him for winning and finally 
eloping with his pretty assistant teacher. 

Christmas eve, 1889, I went to bed a boy. Just 
after breakfast the next morning I became a man 
— my own man. " Sandy Claw " did not come 
that night, although I had hung up my stocking, 
and I was feeling bad about it. After breakfast 
my father called me out into the yard, where we 
seated ourselves on the protruding roots of a 
large oak-tree, and there he set me free. 

" Son," said he, " you are nearing manhood, 
and you have no education; besides, if you remain 
with me I will not be able to help you when you 
are twenty-one. We've decided to make you free, 
if you'll make us one promise — that you will edu- 
cate yourself." 

By that time my mother had joined the party. 
118 



A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'S STORY 

I cried, I know not why, and my mother cried; 
even my father could not conceal his emotion. I 
accepted the proposal immediately, and although 
we usually took Christmas till New Year's day, my 
Christmas that year was then at an end. Manhood 
had dawned upon me that morning. I tried to be 
calm, but inwardly I was like a fish out of water. 

I struck out to find work, that I might make 
money to go to school. One mile across the forest 
brought me to a man who hired me, and promised 
me $9.25 a month for nine months. 

At the end of six months I came across the 
Tuskegee Student, published at the Tuskegee 
Normal and Industrial Institute. I read every 
line in it. On the first page was a note: " There 
is an opportunity for a limited number of able- 
bodied young men to enter the Tuskegee Normal 
and Industrial Institute and work their way 
through, provided application is made at once. 
Booker T. Washington, Principal." 

Work their way through! I had never heard 
of such a thing before. Neither had I heard of 
Tuskegee. I sent in my application. I did not 
know how to address a letter, and so only put 
" Booker T. Washington " on the envelope. Some- 
how he received it and gave me permission to come. 

119 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

There ensued a general scramble to get ready 
to go by the opening of school. I broke off re- 
lations with my employer by compromising for 
a suit of clothes and $8 in money. My chum, 
a man of about forty years of age, seeing the 
struggle I was making to get off, offered to 
help me, or rather to show me how to get the 
money easily by stealing a few chickens and selling 
them. It was a tempting bait, but against all the 
previous teachings of my mother. He argued, and 
my mother, who was not there, also argued within 
me. I could not consent. My friend pitied me 
and offered to do the job himself. 

To get a supply of clothes to take to Tuskegee 
was the question. Up to that time I had never 
worn an undershirt, or a pair of drawers, or a stiff- 
bosom shirt, or a stiff collar. All these I had not 
only to get, but had to learn to wear them. My 
shirts and collars were bought second-hand from 
a white neighbor and were all too large by three 
numbers. 

The last day of September, 1890, I left for 
Tuskegee. When I reached there, although I 
was a young man, I could not tell what county 
t lived in, in answer to Mr. Washington's question. 
I was admitted, after some hesitancy on the part 

120 



A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'S STORY 

of Principal Washington, and sent to the farm 
to work for one year in the daytime and to attend 
school at night. 

I was dazed at the splendor of Tuskegee. 
There was Ai'mstrong Hall, the most imposing 
brick structure I had ever seen. Then came Ala- 
bama Hall, where the girls lived. How wonder- 
ful! I could hardly believe that I was not dream- 
ing, and I was almost afraid I should awake. 
When I went to bed that night I got between two 
sheets — something I had not been accustomed to 
do. About twelve o'clock an officer came in, threw 
the cover off me, and asked some questions about 
nightshirts, comb and brush, and tooth-brush, with 
all of which I was but meagerly acquainted. He 
made me get up, pull off my socks, necktie, 
collar, and shirt, and told me I would rest bet- 
ter without them. I didn't believe him, but I 
obeyed. 

The next morning I saw more activity among 
Negroes than I had ever seen before in my life. 
Not only was everybody at work, but every soul 
seemed to be in earnest. I heard the ringing of 
the anvil, the click of machinery, the music of the 
carpenters' hammers. Before my eyes was a pair 
of big fat mules drawing a piece of new and im- 

121 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

proved farm machinery, which literally gutted 
the earth as the mules moved. Here was a herd 
of cattle, there a herd of swine; here thumped the 
mighty steam-engine that propelled the machine 
which delivered up its many thousand of brick 
daily; there was another machine, equally power- 
ful, turning out thousands of feet of pine lumber 
every day. Then there were the class-rooms, with 
their dignified teachers and worthy -looking young 
men and women. Amid it all moved that won- 
derful figure, Booker T. Washington. 

I began at once a new existence. I made a 
vow that I would educate myself there, or I would 
die and be buried in the school cemetery. When 
Mr. Washington stood at the altar in the first 
service which I attended and uttered a fervent 
prayer asking for guidance, and for spiritual and 
financial strength to carry on that great work, I 
felt that the Lord would surely answer his prayer. 
Since then I have traveled practically all over 
this country, and in one foreign country, without 
once seeing anything that made so deep an im- 
pression on me. 

Simultaneously with this opportunity for self- 
education came many real hardships — to say noth- 
ing of imaginary hardships — which nearly resulted 

122 



A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'S STORY 

disastrously to my health. I was poorly clad for 
the extraordinary winter then setting in. I had 
only one undershirt and one pair of drawers. I 
could not, of course, put these articles in the laun- 
dry, and therefore had to pull them off on Satur- 
day nights, wash them, and get them dry enough 
to wear by breakfast on Sunday morning. It fol- 
lowed that many Sunday mornings found me sit- 
ting at the table wearing damp underwear. I could 
do no better, without leaving school, and this I 
was determined not to do. I was earnest in my 
work, and was promoted from a common laborer 
to be a hostler in charge of all boys dealing with 
horses, and then to the much-sought position of 
special assistant to the farm manager. 

I was beginning to see the mistakes of my for- 
mer life, the time I had lost, and now applied my- 
self diligently. I carried a book with me every- 
where I went, and not a second of time would I 
lose. While driving my mules with a load of wood, 
I would read until I reached the place of unload- 
ing. Mr. Washington took note of this, and upon 
one occasion, while admonishing the students to 
make good use of their time, said: "There is a 
young man on the grounds who will be heard from 
some day because of his intense application to 

123 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

study and diligence in his work." I listened. I 
knew he was speaking of me, and the fact that 
I was to be " heard from " later made me double 
my resolutions. 

In September, 1891, I had to my credit in the 
treasury of the institution $100, and I was now 
ready to enter the day-school, to measure arms 
with the more fortunate students. But, alas! sick- 
ness overtook me, and when I emerged from the 
hospital, after about two months' sickness, my doc- 
tor's bill was exactly $100. My accumulated credit 
went to pay it. 

This was the penalty for making the transit 
from a lower to a higher civilization. When I 
went without undergarments at home, my health 
was saved because of uniformity of habit. Now 
it was injured because I could wear them this 
week, but might not be able to do so the next — 
irregularity of habit. Then, too, Tuskegee gave 
me such living-rooms as I had never lived in, or 
hoped to. I had lived in log houses, which are 
self -ventilating. Now I had either overventilated 
or failed to ventilate my room. It is a difficult 
matter to make the transit from a lower to a higher 
civilization. There are many obstacles, and many 
have fallen by the way. 

124 



A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'S STORY 

I went liome to recuperate, but returned to 
Tuskegee in a few weks, and as I had no money 
I was again permitted to enter the night-school 
and work during the day. This time I took up 
the printers' trade. Here I broke over the con- 
ventional rule of acting " devil " six months, and 
began setting type after one month in the office. 
In six months I was one of the school's regular 
compositors; and in one term I had sufficient 
credit with the treasurer to enter the day-school. 

But I was not yet to enter. A letter came 
from my father, saying, "If you wish to see me 
again alive, I think it would be well to come at 
once." I went. My father died a few days after 
I got home, June 27, 1893. 

All hope of future schooling seemed now at 
an end. My only concern was to do the best I 
could with the exceedingly heavy load now left on 
my hands. I pulled off my school-clothes, went 
to the field, and finished the crop father had left. 
There was a heavy debt, and I began to teach 
school to pay this debt. Of course I knew very 
little, but I taught what I knew — and, I suppose, 
some things I didn't know. 

I think even now that I did the people some 
good. I had not learned much at Tuskegee in 

125 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

books, but I had learned much from Mr. Washing- 
ton's Sunday evening talks in the chapel. I had 
listened carefully to him and had treasured up in 
my heart what he had said from time to time. Now 
I was teaching it to others. I felt I was to this 
little community what Mr. Washington was to 
Tuskegee. So I made the people whitewash their 
fences and fix up their houses and premises gen- 
erally. They were very poor, and when the school 
closed they could not pay me. I told them I 
would take corn, peas, potatoes, sirup, pork, 
shucks, cotton-seed — in fact, anything with which 
they wished to pay me. 

Wagons were secured and loaded, and for 
several days all sorts of provisions were hauled 
to my mother's house and stored away for winter. 
I went to the house of one good widow, who said: 

" 'Fesser, I ain't got nothin' to pay you wid 
but dis 'ere house-cat, and he's a good'n. I owes 
you twenty-five cents, and I wants to pay it. You 
done my little gal good — ^more'n any teacher ever 
did. She ain't stop' washin' her face yit when she 
gits up in de mornin'." 

" Very well," I said, " I'll take the cat with 
thanks and call the debt square." 

Another said: " 'Fesser, I heard you was com- 
126 



A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'S STORY 

ing, and I hid all my meat in de smoke-house, and 
says: ' I'll tell him I ain't got none;' but when I 
seed you coming I tole de chillen to go open de 
smoke-house. Anybody who do my chillens as 
much good as you, can get every bit de meat I got." 
From that woman I got fifty pounds of meat. 

Another good woman wanted me to take her 
only pair of scissors, and when I refused to do so, 
she put them into my coat-pocket, saying the man 
who taught her child so much must be paid. 

For three years I taught school with one per- 
sonal object in view — the support of my mother 
and her family. Mother was not satisfied with 
this ; she wanted me educated. Finally she married 
again, for no higher reason than to permit me, 
and the other children growing up, to go to school. 
My hope for an education was again renewed, and 
I went back to Tuskegee. 

Nearly everybody had forgotten that I had 
ever been there. Notwithstanding I had been out 
nearly three terms, I had kept pace with my class, 
making one class each year, the same as if I had 
been in school. Upon a very critical examination, 
in which I averaged ninety-three for all subjects, 
I entered the B Middle class in the day-school. 

Financially I was very little better off than 
127 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

when I left, but I had learned how to manipulate 
things in such a way as to make it possible to re- 
main in school. I knew a trade at which I could 
easily make a dollar a day in credit, and I could 
teach during the vacation. Things went smootlily 
for one year. Then my brother came, and I had 
to support him in part. Just about the time I was 
getting myself adjusted to this, my sister came. 
I knew I should have to support her almost wholly, 
so I felt like giving up under such a triple burden ; 
but I held on. I had to deny myself many of 
the pleasures of school life in order to make two 
ends meet. I had to wear two pairs of pantaloons 
and one pau* of drawers ; and I remember one Sun- 
day, while the school was enjoying a good sermon 
b}'' a great bishop, I was in the shop melting some 
glue, with which I glued patches on my only pair 
of pantaloons, which had reached a condition where 
thread would no longer hold the patches on. I will 
not tell what happened when the patches had been 
on for a few days. 

But amid all these conflicting affairs of my 
school-days ran an immense amount of pleasure, 
more than I had ever known before. I was gradu- 
ally coming to see things as the}^ are in the affairs 
of men. I thought then, and I still think, that 

128 



A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'S STORY 

no sacrifice was too great when there was such a 
golden opportunity. To sit and listen to one Sun- 
day evening talk by Principal Washington was 
worth all the trouble one had to undergo for a year. 

Two years before I graduated I began to in- 
quire what I was made for — what calling should 
I follow? It was hard to decide. Mr. Washing- 
ton's teaching had impressed me that I should do 
something to help those less fortunate than my- 
self, and that in the very darkest place I could 
find. My father had called me to his death-bed 
and said to me: " Son, I want you to become 
a teacher of your people. I have done what I 
could in that direction. The people need your 
services." I recalled how in his last moments I 
had promised him I would carry out his wishes. 
There was nothing else left for me to do but to 
go into those dark places. But there was the rub; 
and every Sunday evening Mr. Washington thun- 
dered that same theme : " Go into the darkest 
places, the places where you are most needed, and 
there give your life with little thought of self." 
I knew about those dark places. I had been born 
in one of them. I had been spending my vacations 
teaching in them. 

Once, while teaching in the State of Georgia, 
129 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

I boarded with a family where there were fifteen 
besides myself, all sleeping, eating, and cooking 
in the same room. There were three young women 
in the family. When bedtime came I had to go 
out of doors and amuse myself with the stars till 
all the women were in bed; then they would ex- 
tinguish the hearth-light by putting some ashes 
on it and let me come in and go to bed. I had 
to keep my head under the cover the next morning 
while they got up and dressed. I used to sleep 
with my nose near a crack in the wall in order 
to get fresh air. One little girl in the family, 
while saying her prayers one night, begged the 
Lord to let the angels come down and stay with 
them that night. Her little brother promptly in- 
terrupted her by saying that she ought to have 
sense enough to know that there was no room 
in that bed for angels, as there were already five 
persons in it. I was used to the country and its 
worst conditions. I prayed over the matter till 
finally I gave myself, heart and mind, to what- 
ever place should call me. 

During my last year at Tuskegee I was made 
a substitute salaried teacher in the night-school. 
My financial burdens were now lifted and my 
school life became one great pleasure. Toward the 

130 



A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'S STORY 

end of my Senior year I decided to try for the 
Trinity Prize of $25 for the best original oration. 
I remembered what Mr. Washington had so often 
said: that a man usually gets out of a thing what 
he puts into it. I determined to put $100 worth 
of effort into this contest. I was awarded the prize. 

A place was offered to me at Tuskegee as aca- 
demic teacher, but I declined it. I had settled in my 
mind that I would go to the State of Mississippi, 
which I had found by two years of investigation 
was the place where my services were most needed. 
I could not go to Mississippi at once. I had not 
money to pay my way, so I accepted a position 
with my friend, William J. Edwards, at his school 
in Snow Hill, Ala., where I worked for four years, 
never losing sight of my Mississippi object. While 
at Snow Hill I married Miss Mary Ella Patterson, 
a Tuskegee graduate of the Class of '95. We put 
our earnings together and built us a comfortable 
little home. One child, William Sidney, was born 
to us, but lived only six months. 

It took me just two years to convince my wife 
that there was any wisdom or judgment in leaving 
our little home and going to Mississippi, where 
neither of us was known. But finally she gave 
herself, soul and body, to my way of thinking. 
10 131 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

The way was now clear for me to make the 
start. Just before I left for Mississippi, one of 
my old teachers from Tuskegee visited me. He 
inquired about my going to Mississippi, and when 
I explained the scheme to him, he said jestingly, 
" You know there is no God in Mississippi." I 
simply replied that then I would take " the one that 
Alabama had " with me. 

I could not take my wife, for she was under 
the care of a physician at that time. I decided to 
leave nearly all my ready cash with her. I did 
not take quite enough for my railroad fare, for 
I had expected to sell my wife's bicycle when I 
reached Selma, the nearest town, and thus secure 
enough money to finish my trip. But when I got 
to Selma the wheel would not sell, so I boarded 
the train without money enough to reach Utica, 
the place in Mississippi to which I was bound. 

I had not got far into the State of Mississippi 
when my purse was empty. I stopped oiF at 
a little town, late at night, where there were no 
boarding-houses, and no one would admit me to 
a private house to sleep. I wandered about until 
I came upon an old guano-house, and crawled 
into this and slept until the break of day. Then 
I crawled out, pulled myself together, jumped 

132 



A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'S STORY 

astride my bicycle, and made my way toward Utica, 
through a wild and unfrequented part of Missis- 
sippi. But before I could reach Utica my wheel 
broke down, whereupon I put it upon my shoulder, 
rolled up my trousers, and continued the journey 
to Utica. I soon met a young man who relieved 
me of my burden by trading me his brass watch 
for the wheel and giving me $2 to boot. 

I had previously got myself elected principal 
of the little county school, which, if I could pass 
the State examination, would pay me a little salary, 
which would be a great help to me while I worked 
up the Industrial and Normal School which I 
had come to build. Much depended on my ability 
to pass the examination. Tuskegee's reputation 
was at stake — my own reputation was at stake; 
for, if I failed, the people would certainly lose con- 
fidence in me, and make it impossible for me to ac- 
complish my purpose. 

I was out of money, and this was the only way 
I could see to get any for a long time. If I failed, 
my wife — who was still in Alabama, and who be- 
lieved in my ability to do anything — would per- 
haps lose respect for me, and, most of all, the fail- 
ure to pass the examination might upset all my 
plans and blast all my hopes. I confess I went to 

133 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

that examination with a sort of anxious determina- 
tion. I did not, however, find it half so difficult as 
I had expected. I soon succeeded in obtaining the 
necessary license to teach in the public schools of 
the State. 

The little schoolhouse where the school had been 
heretofore was so much out of repair that we could 
not risk having pupils under its roof. I had hoped 
to open in the church, but the good deacons would 
not permit this. So the few pupils who came the 
first day were gathered together under an oak-tree, 
and there were taught. After some time a tempo- 
rary cabin was fixed up, and in this we taught the 
entire winter. The cabin was practically no protec- 
tion against the rain, and less against the winter 
winds. The wind literally came through from all di- 
rections — from the sides, ends, above, and beneath. 

We soon had the floor stopped up with clay. 
This brought about another disadvantage: when 
it began to rain through the roof, the water would 
collect on the floor until it was two or three inches 
deep. Two young women were helping me to 
teach. They often amused me by trying to main- 
tain their dignity and keep out of the water at the 
same time. They would stand upon stools and 
fire questions at their pupils, who were standing 

134 



A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'S STORY 

in the water below while answering them. On such 
days as this I usually wore my overcoat and rubber 
shoes. I would then stand in the water and teach 
with as much indifference as possible. We bored 
holes in the floor to let the water out, but it usu- 
ally came through the roof faster than it could 
escape. There was much suffering at this time 
on the part of both teachers and students, but it 
was all a joy and pleasure to me, for I felt 
that I had found my life-work. 

I was a stranger to the people, and they had 
very little confidence in me. Some of them ques- 
tioned my motives in every direction. At the first 
meeting of the patrons for the purpose of raising 
money, seventy-five cents were collected and were 
turned over to me to hold. In a couple of days 
some one demanded that the collection be taken out 
of my hands. I quietly turned it over to them. 
Then they got up a scramble as to which one should 
hold it. They settled the quarrel by selecting a 
white man in the town of Utica, in whom all of 
them had confidence. I then went out canvassing 
and got $10, which I promptly turned over. Im- 
mediately they wanted to turn it back to me to 
hold, together with what the white man had. They 
never again questioned my sincerity. 

135 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

My wife, who was still in Alabama, kept wri- 
ting me to let her join me. Explanations would 
do no good. She laid aside all the comforts of 
home life and came to live in a hovel. We rented 
a little room, bought a skillet and a frying-pan, a 
bed and two chairs, and set up housekeeping. I 
did the cooking, for my wife was a city girl and 
did not know how to cook on the open fireplace. 
We never contrasted our condition in JNIississippi 
with that in Alabama; we simply made the best 
of what we had. 

At first there was difficulty in securing land for 
a location, and many of the patrons began to feel 
that nothing would be accomplished. To offset 
this idea I purchased lumber for a building, had 
it put in the churchyard, and cut up ready for 
framing. The enthusiasm had to be kept up. 
Land was soon bought and the building started. 
Everybody felt now that something was going to 
be done. At the end of the first year's work I 
was able to make to the trustees a creditable re- 
port, from which the following is taken: 

As soon as we secured a cabin to teach in, the 
young people came in great numbers. We soon 
had an attendance of 200. One teacher after an- 

136 



A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'S STORY 

other was employed to assist, until seven teachers 
were daily at work. After three months in our 
temporary quarters conditions were very trying. 
There was no money to pay teachers or to meet 
the grocery bills for teachers' board. The winter 
was well on, and the structure in which we were 
located was little protection against it. The rain 
easily came through the roof, and water was often 
two inches deep on certain parts of the floor. Sev- 
eral teachers and students were suffering with 
pneumonia or kindred disorders, as a result of 
all this exposure. I confess that during this dark 
period only a carefully planned system and much 
determination prevented despair. 

During all this time I was trying to secure 
the interest of the people. I went from door to 
door, explaining our efforts; then I made a tour 
of the churches ; after riding or walking five or ten 
miles at night I would return, and then teach the 
next day. After a protracted struggle of this 
kind, and after visiting almost everybody for many 
miles, I found that I had secured about $600. 
This greatly relieved us. Forty acres of land were 
purchased, and a part of the lumber for a good, 
comfortable building was put upon the grounds. 
Some of our trustees in New York city and Bos- 
ton now came to our assistance, and with this, 
and contributions from a few other friends, we 
were able to get through the year. Although it 
was a great struggle, I found in it some pleasure. 

137 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

To know that you were doing the work that the 
world needs, and must have done, is a pleasure 
even under trying difficulties. 

Starting last October without a cent, in the 
open air, we have succeeded in establishing a regu- 
larly organized institution incorporated under the 
laws of the State of Mississippi, with 225 students 
and seven teachers, and with property valued at 
$4,000. Forty acres of good farm-land about a 
mile from town have been secured. A model crop 
is now growing on this farm. We have erected a 
building — a two-story frame — at a cost of some- 
thing over $2,000. 

I hope you will not get, from what I have 
said, an idea that I am measuring the success of 
my efforts by material advancement. I am not. 
There are forces which our labors have set to work 
here, the results of which can not be measured in 
facts and figures. One year ago religious services 
were held once a month, at which time the day was 
spent in singing, praying, and shouting. The way 
some of the people lived for the next twenty-nine 
days would shock a sensitive individual to read 
about it. Young people would gamble with the 
dice, etc., in a most despicable way, within a short 
distance of the church, during services; others 
would discharge revolvers at the church door dur- 
ing services; ignorance, superstition, vice, and im- 
morality were everywhere present, notwithstanding 
the handful of determined Christian men and 

138 



A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL'S STORY 

women who were trying to overcome these evil tend- 
encies. I do not maintain that these evils have 
been crushed out. They have not. But what I 
do maintain is that the general current has been 
checked. The revolution is on ; and if we continue 
the work here, as we surely will, these evil tenden- 
cies will soon be crushed out. 

During this year the people themselves fur- 
nished $1,000 toward the support of the school. 
They have never before spent a tenth as much for 
education. The second year eleven teachers were 
employed and 400 students were admitted. The 
cost of operations was $10,000, all of which was 
raised during the year. We are now entering into 
our third term. Fifteen teachers have been em- 
ployed, and the expenses of operation will be about 
$15,000, all of which I must raise by direct effort. 
Our property, all deeded to a board of trustees, is 
valued at $10,000. 

I can not feel that I have accomplished much 
here in Mississippi, because I see all around me so 
much to be done — so much that I can not touch 
because of lack of means. But, being in the work 
to stay, I may, in the end, contribute my share to 
the betterment of man. If I have suffered much 
to build up this work, I can not feel that it is 

X39 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

a sacrifice. It is a colossal opportunity. The 
greater the sacrifice, the more extensive the oppor- 
tunity. Whatever may have been accomplished al- 
ready is certainly due more to my wife's superior 
judgment than to my own activity. Whatever 
I have been able to do myself here in Mississippi 
for my people has been due, first, to the teach- 
ings of my mother, and, second, to the all-im- 
portant life-example and matchless teachings of 
Booker T. Washington. 



140 



Ill 

A LAWYER'S STORY 

By George W. Lovejoy 

I CAN give no accurate date as to my birth, as 
my mother was a slave and thus it was not re- 
corded, but I think I was born in the month of 
February, 1859. I was born in Coosa, one of 
the middle counties of Alabama. 

I am the third child and the second son of 
eleven children, seven of whom are still living. 

My father I do not remember, as he died when 
I was very young, but I most vividly remember 
my stepfather, the only father I ever knew. 

Childhood to me was not that long season of 
" painless play " of which Whittier so beautifully 
sings, but I do remember that I was early im- 
pressed that my feet must have been made for the 
express purpose of treading " the mills of toil." 
When seven years of age my stepfather put a 
hoe in my little hands and bade me go and help 
my mother weed the cotton-patch, and from that 

141 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

day to the present time I have been constant in my 
application to some form of labor. 

When my mind reverts to that early period of 
my life I become my own photographer and get 
various pictures of myself, either as picking, hoe- 
ing, or planting cotton, of pulling fodder or split- 
ting rails, for these were the things I did from 
childhood to manhood. 

My stepfather had been the foreman, or 
" driver," for his master when he was a slave, 
and I am persuaded to believe that he must have 
been an excellent one, for I can not remember in 
all my life when a day's work had been so full, so 
complete, so well done, that he would not press for 
a little more the next day. 

Mortgaging of crops was then in vogue, as it 
is to-day, and my mind revolts when I think of 
how my young life and the lives of my mother, 
sisters, and brothers were burdened with the con- 
stant grind of trying to eke out a living and, if 
possible, get even a little ahead. 

Some years, when conditions had been favor- 
able, we were able to clear ourselves of debt and 
begin anew. But, seemingly, this prosperity was 
not for us, for these years of plenty were almost 
invariably followed by one or two less fruitful 

U2 



A LAWYER'S STORY 

ones that came and " swallowed up the whole," 
leaving us as forlorn and as wretchedly poor as 
we were before. This failure of the crops because 
of drouths unduly long, wet seasons, the ravages 
of worms, caterpillars, and other uncontrollable 
circumstances, not only meant that the whole of 
that year's labor was to bring no tangible rewards, 
but that much property accumulated in more pros- 
perous times was to be dissipated as well. I can 
recall repeated instances when all of my step- 
father's live stock was taken for debt under this 
crushing system. And thus it was that my step- 
father, and my mother, and the rest of the farmers 
for miles around existed! 

During all these years my brothers, sisters, and 
myself were growing up in ignorance. Until I 
was ten years old I had never heard of a school 
for colored children. Even after the privilege of 
attending school two months of the year — July 
and August — had been accorded me, I am certain 
that the instruction received was of that kind 
that hinders more than it helps. Year after year 
the course of study would be repeated. Perhaps 
this repetition was necessary for more than one 
reason : 

First, ten months' vacation does not tend to 
143 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

firmly impress upon one's mind the knowledge ac- 
quired in two. 

Second, the teachers themselves had such lim- 
ited knowledge that two months were ample time 
in which to exhaust their store of knowledge, and, 
as examinations were so easy, it was not impera- 
tive that they do more than " keep school." 

I remember quite distinctly that when I did 
go to school we used the proverbial Webster's 
blue-back speller. The majority of the pupils 
began with the "A, B, C," the alphabet, and went 
as far as " horseback," while apt pupils might be 
able to reach " compressibility." And so for years 
we went from " A " to " compressibility " on 
" horseback." 

In those days the three " R's " were not con- 
founded. Only one of them was given to us, and 
that in broken doses, for I reached manhood with- 
out being able to write a single word or to work 
a problem in mathematics. 

Neither my mother nor stepfather could read 
or write a line ; not a book, newspaper, or magazine 
was ever seen in our home. It was most unusual 
to see a colored man or woman who could either 
read or write. 

When a mere boy I inwardly protested against 
144 



A LAWYER'S STORY 

this manner of bringing-up. I determined to 
make my life more useful, to make it better than 
it was. But how long these years were ! However, 
the day came when I was twenty-one, and I began 
to create a " life " for myself. 

I immediately went to work doing farm labor, 
and saved my earnings until I had twenty-five or 
thirty dollars ahead. I then decided to go to school 
somewhere and to learn something. I found my 
first opportunity in Montgomery, Ala. I went 
there in November, 1883, and entered the Swayne 
School. 

Everything was new and strange to me. I 
had never seen so large a schoolhouse before. 
I was dazed, bewildered. There I was, a great, 
grown man, in the class with little children, who 
looked upon me as a curiosity, something to be 
wondered at. I, too, looked at them with amaze- 
ment, for it seemed next to impossible for young 
boys and girls to know as much as they seemed 
to know. 

I can not say that I was heartily received by 
the pupils. I was awkward, and I discovered that 
the city children did not find me pleasingly com- 
panionable. 

It is probable that at this point I should have 
145 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

grown discouraged and given up had I not met 
that great and good man, Rev. Robert C. Bed- 
ford,' who is now, as he has been for many years, 
secretary of the board of trustees of the Tuske- 
gee Institute, and who travels among and reports 
upon the work of Tuskegee graduates and former 
students, but who was at that time pastor of the 
First Congregational Church in Montgomery. I 
regularly attended his church and the Sunday- 
school connected therewith, and received such help 
and encouragement from him as but few men can 
impart to others. 

It was he who first told me of Tuskegee 
and advised me to enter there. I felt that this 
advice, if heeded, would work for my good. I 
was admitted to Tuskegee for the session begin- 
ning September, 1884, three years after the school 
had been opened. , 

When I entered Tuskegee I was filled with 
loathing for all forms of manual labor. I had 
been a slave to toil all my life and had resolved 
that, if it were possible for a colored man to make 
a living by doing something besides farming, split- 
ting rails, or picking and hoeing cotton, I would 
be one of that number. I was compelled at the 
school, however, like the others, to work at some 

146 



A LAWYER'S STORY 

industry. I did some work on the farm and was 
one of the school's " boss " janitors. 

Though I had no real inclination to learn a 
trade or to perform any kind of manual toil, I 
did desire to be useful, and throughout my whole 
school life at Tuskegee I had visions of myself 
seated in an office pondering over Blackstone, 
Kent, and Storey, with a " shingle " on the outside 
announcing my profession to all passers-by. 

After spending some time in Tuskegee and 
diligently applying myself, I was much gratified 
to find that I was able to pass the State examina- 
tion for a second-grade certificate, and to teach, 
during the vacation period, the very school in which 
I had so long before learned to spell " horseback " 
and " compressibility." 

I spent four years in the Tuskegee Institute, 
graduating with the class of 1888. 

Before graduating, I divulged to Mr. Wash- 
ington my long-cherished ambition, and was some- 
what chagrined to find that he did not think much 
of my dreams. He apparently sympathized with 
this larger vision, but seemed to think I ought to 
have more education. I suspect he was right. 
However, I was determined to make an effort to 
realize my ambitions. I insisted that he must 
11 147 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

help me to find a place to read law. After a 
while it was decided that I should begin in 
the office of Mr. WiUiam M. Reid, of Ports- 
mouth, Va. 

With this end in view, I taught in the State of 
Alabama from May, 1888, until April, 1889. I 
then left for Portsmouth. 

Though I had worked for eleven months, I 
had but $1.25 when I reached Portsmouth. My 
salary had been meager, I had paid every cent I 
owed the school, and had met the many obliga- 
tions necessary to living in a decently comfortable 
manner. 

I found Mr. Reid to be an intelligent, studious, 
hard-working young man, with a fairly good prac- 
tise, and in that hour of uncertainty and embar- 
rassment he proved himself to be " the friend in 
need." With his aid I was not long in finding 
work by which I earned enough to pay my board 
and buy books to help me in my study of law at 
night. 

I worked during the daytime at the United 
States Navy- Yard in Portsmouth, receiving $1.25 
per day. I had never before earned so much 
money. I was able not only to meet my regular 
bills but to save something, and soon began to 

148 



A LAWYER'S STORY 

collect a law library. I worked at the Navy- Yard 
for three years. It was my privilege to work 
upon the second-class battleship Texas, and upon 
the steel-protected cruiser Raleigh, both of which 
rendered admirable service in the Spanish-Ameri- 
can War. 

In the spring of 1892 I felt that I had suffi- 
cient knowledge of law to begin practising. I 
left Virginia and returned to Alabama. The tug 
of war had now begun. I found it exceedingly 
difficult to get examined. After trying for five 
months, I succeeded in getting a lawyer, a Mr. 
Thompson, of Macon County, Ala., to recommend 
me to the chancery court of that county for ex- 
amination. I was examined in open court before 
all the practising attorneys of that bar, and was 
given license to practise law in the State of 
Alabama. 

I was elated, overjoyed — my dream was neap- 
ing its realization ! 

I selected Mobile, Ala., a city of about fifty 
thousand inhabitants, as my field of labor. I 
opened my office on September 8, 1892, and have 
practised law there from that time to the present 
date. Though I have met many obstacles and 
have had many difficulties to surmount, I have 

149 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

never had to close my office, or seek other employ- 
ment to make a living. I have done well. 

I have experienced no embarrassment because 
of prejudice. The judges and juries have dis- 
cussed cases with me in the same manner that they 
would with any other lawyer at the bar. I have 
even had a few white clients. 

To get the confidence of my own people is the 
hardest problem I have had to solve, for I find that 
men are still sometimes without honor in their own 
country. 

I am daily confronted with many petty difficul- 
ties. I sometimes find that even a religious dif- 
ference will come between me and a probable cH- 
ent. Some think I should be a Baptist, others 
would have me a Methodist, and others still sug- 
gest that I should embrace the Catholic faith. I 
should also belong to every secret society in the 
city, and attend every public gathering no matter 
what the hour, whether it be called at high noon 
or at dawn of day. 

Despite these things to be expected of a people 
but forty years free, and used to white judges, and 
juries, and lawyers, and unused to dealing with 
one of their own, I feel that I am still winning 
my way. It is my desire to help my fellow men, 

150 



A LAWYER'S STORY 

and in return receive an appreciable share of their 
help. 

After practising my profession for nearly two 
years, I was married to Miss Sarah E. Ogden, who 
was at that time a student at the Tuskegee Insti- 
tute. We have been happily married for ten years 
and have been blessed with six children, only three 
of whom, I am sorry to state, are living. 

I feel that I can not close this short sketch 
without paying a closing tribute to my alma mater 
— Tuskegee. Those lessons of thrift, industry, 
and integrity dwelt upon by Principal Washing- 
ton and his coworkers, I shall never forget. My 
heart thrills and its pulses beat whenever I think 
of what it has meant to me to come in contact with 
the quickening influences of that school. 

I lift up my voice and call her blessed, my Tus- 
kegee ! 



151 



IV 

A SCHOOL TREASURER'S STORY 

By Martin A. Menafee 

I WAS born on a plantation in Lee County, 
Ala., and, as my parents were very poor, I was 
placed in the field and did not see the inside of 
a schoolroom until I was twelve years old. I 
then had a chance to attend a three months' school 
for six months, or for two years, as we usually 
called it. Before this I had had one of my shoul- 
ders dislocated through an accident and have been 
able to use but one arm since. 

At this period I made up my mind to secure 
an education, and a gentleman who was teaching 
school at my home took me to an Alabama college, 
thinking that he could perhaps get me in school 
there. I told the president of the college that I 
wanted an education, and offered him my services in 
return for such opportunities as he would open to 
me, but seeing my condition, he soon concluded 
that I could render but little in the way of services. 

152 



A SCHOOL TREASURER'S STORY 

I pleaded with him for a trial, but he refused me 
admittance, albeit in a very nice and polite manner. 

I returned home, then at Oakbowery, Ala. 
Very soon after my return I heard of the Tuske- 
gee Institute, and I think it was in July of that 
year when I made up my mind that I would start 
for this school, which was about forty miles from 
where I lived. After walking to Auburn, Ala., 
twelve miles, I waited for the train and, as she 
glided up, I walked in and took my seat. Before 
I left home I knew some walking would be neces- 
sary, and preferred doing it at the beginning of 
the journey. I was admitted on my arrival, after 
some parleying, and was promptly assigned to 
work in the brick-yard. After I had been there 
for two days I found that the sun had no pity 
on, or patience with, me; it seemed to blister me 
through and through. I finally concluded that the 
sun, together with the brick-yard, was blasting the 
hopes I had entertained and the determination I 
had fostered, of securing an education. I tried 
to get my work changed, but the Director of In- 
dustries did not see it as I did, and would not do it. 

The next thing that I settled upon for relief 
was to get sick, but a day's trial of that showed 
that would not work. I decided that I would 

153 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

return home, where I was sure I would at least 
find no brick-yard to harass or disturb. My stay at 
the school was just about seven or eight days. 
I would like to add just here, however, that I am 
very glad that I was put on the brick-yard, as 
it certainly left in me the spirit of work after I 
got over that first affliction of heat. 

Very soon after I had returned home I re- 
ceived a letter from one of the teachers of Talla- 
dega College, a Miss S. J. Elder, who met me 
when I was there seeking entrance, asking me to 
go to Jenifer, Ala., and attend a school there con- 
ducted by two .white ladies; she said she would 
" foot " all of my bills. This greatly relieved 
me, and I considered it a great thing. Very soon 
thereafter I had my clothes ready, and was at 
Jenifer. I was there for one year, but Tuskegee 
was constantly on my mind; in fact, I had made 
up my mind to give it a second trial. 

On October 29, 1894, I again went to Tuske- 
gee and asked for admission. I was admitted with 
the understanding that I should stand up in the 
Chapel and make a public acknowledgment of the 
wrong I had done in leaving the school without 
permission. This seemed like a great humiliation, 
as I could hardly talk to one person, to say nothing 

154 



A SCHOOL TREASURER'S STORY 

of the thousand students and teachers then there, 
as I stammered so much. Mr. Washington seemed 
to understand the situation and was kind enough 
to help me out by asking questions. 

I was given work on the farm, and started out 
again with renewed vigor and determination to 
complete a course of study. The farm manager, 
Mr. C. W. Greene, was very kind to me and gave 
me work that I could do. After I had been on the 
farm about two weeks he placed me at the gates 
to keep out the cows and hogs that might be 
tempted to walk in on the school-lawns. This work 
I enjoyed, and very soon established an " office " 
under a tree near the gate. I held this position 
and kept this " office " for two years. 

I was then taken from there and placed in Mr. 
Greene's office to help him. It was at Tuskegee 
that I first saw a typewriter and shorthand wri- 
ting. I made up my mind that I would be a stenog- 
rapher and typewriter, and thought that if I could 
learn this, that would be as high up as I cared 
to go in life. I borrowed a book on shorthand, not 
being able to purchase one, and began the study 
without a teacher. Very soon I realized that I 
had learned a little, and my ambition grew. I 
wanted a typewriter. 

155 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

I got up enough courage to go to the Rev. 
R. C. Bedford, who often visited the school, and 
who was one of my best friends, and, in fact, is 
largely responsible for my being able to stay at 
Tuskegee as long as I did, and told him I wanted a 
typewriter ; I repeatedly told him that my success in 
life largely depended upon my securing it. Mr. 
Bedford said he would see what could be done, and, 
in a very short time, he came from the North and 
brought the machine. When he informed me that 
he had brought it, it did seem that I could not 
stay on the grounds. I felt then that I had all 
that was necessary to make me a stenographer, and 
very soon declared myself a member of the steno- 
graphic world. 

I advanced very well in these new studies and 
was given some work to do in the offices. The 
regular school stenographers helped me all they 
could. 

The saddest experience I ever had in connec- 
tion with the Tuskegee Institute was at the end of 
my second summer. I was very anxious to remain 
in the employ of the school, as my people were 
very poor and I did not care to be home on them 
unless I could become a full field hand, and I felt 
that the school had much work that I could do. 

156 



A SCHOOL TREASURER'S STORY 

I appealed to the Director more than once to let 
me remain, but he replied each time that the work 
department was closed ; that he could not take any 
more, and furthermore, that it was best that I 
return home. Mr. Bedford encouraged me all he 
could and told me that I might find something to 
do; that I should launch out for myself. I went 
to Opelika, and Mr. Bedford was on the same 
train. He and I were in Opelika together for 
about a half day. He was on his way to Beloit, 
Wis., his home, and I was on my way home to 
Oakbowery. About thirty minutes before it was 
time for my train to leave, I noticed a man who 
was very busy superintending the hauling of some 
lumber. This man asked my name, what I could 
do, and where I was from. For a moment I hesi- 
tated to tell him, but finally did. I found that he 
was the principal of the colored city school at Ope- 
lika, Professor J. R. Savage. Mr. Savage proved 
to be a true friend. He gave me work at once 
in the Summer Normal School he was conducting. 
I went to my home that evening, rejoicing that I 
had found work. When I returned to Opelika Mr. 
Savage asked me to take charge of the business de- 
partment of the Summer Normal and teach short- 
hand and typewriting. I worked with him in this 

157 



1/" 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

way for three summers, my vacation periods, with 
much success. We worked well together and in 
perfect harmony. 

At the opening of each school year at Tuske- 
gee I would be among the first to get there to be- 
gin my studies. I found that, in order to remain 
at Tuskegee, students had to have a real purpose. 
I had one, and I think so impressed the Faculty 
before leaving there. 

I did not have all smooth sailing, and, at times, 
I would all but give up. 

I was at Tuskegee for six years, and I recall 
those years with much pleasure and satisfaction. 
During my stay there I made many friends, and 
I can not refrain from mentioning the Rev. R. C. 
Bedford, who has helped me in so many ways; Mr. 
Warren Logan, the Treasurer of the school ; Mrs. 
F. B. Thornton, the Matron, who took me as her 
son, and my dear friend, the farm manager, Mr. 
C. W. Greene. Many others were also very kind 
to me. 

I completed my course of study in 1900. By 
this time Mr. Bedford had secured a position for 
me at Denmark, S. C, as stenographer to the 
principal. Miss Elizabeth E. Wright, a Tuskegee 
graduate. I did not hold this position very long 

158 



A SCHOOL TREASURER'S STORY 

before it was decided in a meeting of the board of 
trustees to have me act as the school's treasurer. 
On being asked to take this place, I answered that 
I would do my best. I have now been here since 
the fall of the year of my graduation. I like the 
work immensely. 

A word about the school: It is known as the 
Voorhees Industrial School, and is located in the 
midst of an overshadowing Negro population. It 
has just completed the seventh year of its exist- 
ence. Miss Wright, the principal, founded it on 
faith. She is a delightfully spiritual woman, and 
was at first greatly opposed in her efforts by both 
the black and white people of this section. She 
persevered, however, and all the people are now 
her friends. Her work here has been but little 
short of marvelous. The pride of the grounds is 
a splendidly arranged Central Building, which cost 
$3,000. It contains offices, class-rooms, and a 
chapel that will seat 600 persons. A large building 
for girls, costing $4,000, has also been erected. A 
Tuskegee graduate drew the plans for both of 
these buildings. A barn which cost $800 we have 
also been able to complete, and are now using. 

In our Faculty, in addition to Miss Wright, 
who is of the Class of 1904, Tuskegee Institute, 

159 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

we have six other Tuskegee graduates: a farm 
superintendent, a carpenter, a teacher of draw- 
ing, a principal of the primary department, a sew- 
ing and cooking teacher, a milHnery teacher and 
industrial helper, and a treasurer and bookkeeper, 
myself. 

The day- and boarding-pupils number 300. 

Voorhees is one of the sixteen larger " off- 
shoots " of Tuskegee Institute, manned and con- 
trolled by Tuskegee graduates. It is a chartered 
State institution, and has on its board of trustees 
white and colored persons. Northern and South- 
ern. One of its very best and most helpful sup- 
porters and friends is a Southern white man who 
has helped it in ways innumerable, and has backed 
it when the courage of all of us has all but fal- 
tered. 

By precept and example the school is helping 
the black masses of rural South Carolina to help 
themselves. The work we do is far different from 
that done by any other school in the State ; we pro- 
vide the way for our students, as at Tuskegee, be- 
cause of their poverty, to work on the farm and in 
the shops during the day and attend school at night. 
Without this help most of them would be without 
any chance to attend school. Our students are 

160 



A SCHOOL TREASURER'S STORY 

learning to dignify labor. None have yet gradu- 
ated, as our school is young and most of those 
who come to us can not read or write a word. 
They are wofuUy ignorant, but so willing to 
learn, so earnest, and so persevering. 

During the last school year, 1903-04, we re- 
ceived from all sources $18,310.43. This will give 
some idea as to the scope and importance of our 
work, and of my work in disbursing this large 
sum as the treasurer of the school. 

Our present property valuation is $25,000, and 
consists of 300 acres of land, 3 large buildings, a 
large barn, a schoolhouse for primary children, 
4 cottages, an industrial building, 10 mules, 6 
horses, 30 cows, 3 wagons, 3 buggies, etc., all free 
from indebtedness of any character. We stay out 
of debt; that for which we can not pay we do 
without. 

We afford instruction in the following in- 
dustries: Farming in its various branches, shoe- 
making, carpentry, cooking, sewing, housekeeping, 
laundering, millinery in a small way, printing, and 
blacksmithing. 

The training received at Tuskegee has been of 
so much help to me since leaving there. I made 
up my mind after graduation that I would urge 

161 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

my parents and relatives to cease paying five and 
six bales of cotton each year for rent, and instead 
take the same amount of cotton and buy a place 
of their own. I am glad to say, through my 
efforts in this regard, they have been placed on a 
tract of 160 acres of good land, and it is practically 
paid for, they paying four bales of cotton a year. 
They are doing well and are making something for 
themselves. This project seemed a little strange 
to them for the first two years, but they are now 
used to it. 

" He that hath a trade," saith Franklin, " hath 
an estate, and he that hath a calling, hath a place 
and honor." Since being out in the world I have 
learned not to wait for a higher position or a bet- 
ter salary, and have steadily sought to enlarge the 
ones I have had. I have tried to fill such positions 
as I have had as they were never filled before, by 
doing better work, by being more prompt, by be- 
ing more thorough, more polite, and, in fact, I 
have filled them so completely that no one else 
could slip in by me. I have always laid great stress 
on work as a means of developing power; I am 
called by some of my friends a fanatic on this sub- 
ject. My experience at Tuskegee taught me that 
our racial salvation is to come through hard, ear- 

162 



A SCHOOL TREASURER'S STORY 

nest, intelligent, sincere work. I owe a world of 
gratitude to the Tuskegee Institute for the train- 
ing I received there and for the great work it is 
doing for the Negro people. 

I repeat, if I accompHsh anything in life that 
is worth while, it will be due wholly to the Tuske- 
gee Institute, to its officers and teachers. No true 
graduate of Tuskegee ever forgets the lessons 
learned there. I am sure I shall not. 



13 163 



THE STORY OF A FARMER 

By Frank Reid 

I AM glad to be able to give some facts regard- 
ing what my brother Dow and I have been able 
to do since leaving the Tuskegee Institute. 

We did not graduate, I am sorry to say, but 
the lessons given us have not been forgotten. 
These lessons started us on the way to our present 
success. I do not use the word " success " boast- 
fully, but because it really states a fact: we have 
done much more than we ever hoped to do, and 
have been the means of contributing in some 
slight measure toward the uplifting of the imme- 
diate community about us. 

We are located at a place called Dawkins, not 
more than twelve miles from the Tuskegee Insti- 
tute, and immediately within its sphere of influence. 

Our mother and father were born within a few 
miles of where we now live. Both of our parents, 
at the time I write, are living, and are each about 

164 



THE STORY OF A FARMER 

sixty-five years of age; they were, for twenty- 
five years each, slaves. Neither can read or write. 
My brother and I each spent about three years 
at Tuskegee, and, in addition, he attended school 
for two years at Talladega College. 

I had a very thorough course in carpentry, and 
my brother worked on the Institute farm. We 
married two sisters, Susie and Lillie Hendon. 
Shortly after my marriage my beloved wife Susie 
died, leaving me with one child. My brother's wife 
still lives; they have three children. 

Until ten years ago we, with our father, were 
renters, all of us working together. But the Sun- 
day evening talks at Tuskegee by Principal Wash- 
ington, and his urgent insistence, at all times, that 
Tuskegee graduates and students should try to 
own land, led us to desire to improve our condition. 
We were large renters, however; for twenty-three 
years our father and his relatives had leased and 
" worked " a tract of 1,100 acres of land, having 
leased it for ten years at a time. We still lease this 
tract, and, in addition, rent an additional 480 acres 
in tlie same way, ten years at a time. We subrent 
tracts of this total of 1,580 acres to thirty tenants, 
charging one and one-half bales of cotton for each 
one-horse farm. We pay twenty-three bales for 

165 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

the rent of the 1,580 acres. My brother and I run 
a sixteen-horse farm, doing much of the work our- 
selves and paying wages to those who work for us. 
A number of others also work for us on " halves " 
— that is, we provide the land, furnish the seeds, 
tools, mules, feed the mules, and equally divide 
whatever is raised. This is largely done in all the 
country districts of the South. 

About ten years ago we bought in our own 
right our first land, 320 acres. Since that time we 
have acquired by purchase another tract containing 
285 acres. The first tract we paid for in two years ; 
the other is also paid for. The total of 605 acres, 
I am glad to say, is without incumbrance of any 
kind. 

The following statements may give some idea 
as to what we have been able to do since leaving 
Tuskegee : 

During the year 1904 alone, we paid out $5,000, 
covering debts on land, fertilizers, and money bor- 
rowed with which to carry our thirty tenants. 

We own sixteen mules and horses, fourteen 
head of cattle, thirty hogs, and have absolutely no 
indebtedness of any character. 

My brother Dow lives in a good three-room 
house. My father and I live in a good six-room 

166 



THE STORY OF A FARMER 

house, with a large, airy hall, and kitchen; it cost 
us to build, $1,500. 

We conduct a large general store, with every- 
thing carried in a country store of this kind. The 
colored Odd Fellows use the hall above our store 
for their meetings. 

The Government post-office is located in our 
store, and here all of the surrounding community 
come for their mail. 

Our store does a large yearly business aver- 
aging about $5,000. 

We have a steam-gin and grist-mill. We gin 
about 500 bales of cotton a season for ourselves and 
others hving near; of the 150 bales got from the 
land owned and rented by us, 100 are ours, the 
other 50 belong to our tenants. 

We raise large quantities of corn, potatoes, and 
peas, in addition to our cotton crop. 

We are now trying to purchase the 480 acres we 
have been so long renting. 

The church and the schoolhouse are on four 
acres of land immediately adjoining ours. The 
church is roomy, well-seated, ceiled and painted, in 
striking contrast with most of those in the country 
districts of the South. The schoolhouse has two 
rooms, and is but partially ceiled, though it is 

107 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

nicely weather-boarded. The school is regularly 
conducted for five months each year, and part of 
the time has two teachers. Mr. J. C. Calloway, a 
Tuskegee graduate. Class of '96, is principal of the 
school. We are cooperating with Mr. Calloway in 
an effort to supplement the school funds and se- 
cure an additional two months. We helped pay 
for the land, and gave a part of the money toward 
the schoolhouse, and have done all possible to 
help, keeping in mind Principal Washington's oft- 
repeated statement that "it is upon the country 
public schools that the masses of the race are de- 
pendent for an education." 

My brother and I, with our father, it will be 
noted, own and rent 2,185 acres of land, but we try 
to help our tenants in every possible way, and, when 
they desire it, subrent to them such tracts as they de- 
sire for ten years, or less. We have established a 
blacksmith-shop on our land, and do all our own 
work and most of that of the whole community. 
Rev. Robert C. Bedford, secretary of the board of 
trustees, Tuskegee Institute, some time ago visited 
us, as he does most of the Tuskegee graduates and 
former students. He is apprised of the correct- 
ness of the statements set forth above. He wrote 
the following much-appreciated compliment to a 

168 



THE STORY OF A FARMER 

friend regarding our homes and ourselves : " The 
homes of the Reid brothers are very nicely- 
furnished throughout. Everything is well kept 
and very orderly. The bedspreads are strikingly 
white, and the rooms — though I called when not 
expected — were in the very best of order." 

This further statement may not be amiss: 
Under the guidance of the Tuskegee influences, 
the annual Tuskegee Negro Conferences, the visits 
of Tuskegee teachers, etc., the importance of land- 
buying was early brought to our attention, but 
because of the crude and inexperienced laborers 
about us, we found that we could, with advantage 
to all, rent large tracts of land, subrent to others, 
and in this way pay no rent ourselves, as these sub- 
renters did that for us. We could in this way also 
escape paying taxes, insurance, and other expenses 
that naturally follow. We could, as many white 
farmers do, hire wage hands at from $7.50 to 
$10 a month, with " rations," or arrange to have 
them work on " halves," as I have already de- 
scribed. 

But at last we yielded to the constant pounding- 
received at Tuskegee whenever we would go over, 
that we ought to own land for ourselves ; and then, 
too, it occurred to me that we might not always have 

169 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

the same whole-souled man to deal with, and that 
terms might be made much harder. My brother 
and father agreed, and we set about to purchase the 
first 320 acres. As I feared, rental values have 
increased; formerly we rented the 1,100 acres for 
three bales of cotton ; now we give sixteen bales for 
the same land. 

My brother, our father, and I have worked to- 
gether from the beginning. We have had no dis- 
putes or differences; we have worked on the basis 
of a common property interest. 

We have encouraged the people of our com- 
munity as much as possible to secure homes, buy 
lands, live decently, and be somebody. The fol- 
lowing are some typical examples of thrift and 
industry in the community about us: 

Turner Moore owns 210 acres of land adjoin- 
ing ours. He was born near where he lives and was 
over twenty -jfive years a slave. He has 11 mules 
and horses and raised 65 bales of cotton last year. 
His property is all paid for. His brother, Moses 
Moore, also has 65 acres, all paid for, and Reuben 
Moore, a nephew, owns 212 acres, all paid for. 
Their farms join. 

James Whitlow, father-in-law of Mr. J. C. 
Calloway, the teacher referred to, owns 1,137 acres 

170 



THE STORY OF A FARMER 

in one body, only about two miles from our place. 
It is all paid for, and the deeds are all recorded at 
the Macon County Courthouse. He was born right 
where he now lives, and was twelve years old when 
freed. 

Mr. Whitlow rents a gin, but will own one 
of his own this year. He also carries on a store. 
He has 20 tenants, who will raise over 100 bales of 
cotton this year together. He has raised over 30 
himself. He has 20 mules, 3 horses, 30 head of 
cattle, and about 75 hogs. He does not owe a 
nickel. His taxes are $60 per year. He has a very 
good four-room house, besides a kitchen. 

Mr. Whitlow has fourteen children, ten boys 
and four girls, who go to school on our place. He 
himself can not read or write, but he helps the 
school and church. 

J. C. Calloway was born near us. He gradu- 
ated from Tuskegee, and has continued to work 
near his old home. He married James Whitlow's 
daughter. He has a very good two-room frame 
house. Mr. Whitlow gave them 40 acres of land, 
and he is trying to buy an additional 100 acres. 
He raised 17 bales of cotton this year and 150 bush- 
els of corn. He has 4 horses and mules and 7 head 
of cattle, besides hogs, chickens, etc. He is very 

171 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

highly thought of in his school work, and is suc- 
cessful as a farmer. 

I believe we are doing well. Our community 
is rated high, and I shall never fail to praise Tuske- 
gee for starting us in the way we are going. 



172 



VI 
THE STORY OF A CARPENTER 

By Gabriel B. Miller 

The plantation on which I was born in 1875 
is located near Pleasant Hill, Ga. At that time 
Pleasant Hill was twenty miles from any railroad, 
and I did not see a railroad train till I was twelve 
years of age. 

I lived on a plantation on which more than two 
hundred men and women worked for the owner. 
The children had no especial educational opportu- 
nities. Few of them were even permitted to attend 
the makeshift public school located near. For six 
months only, of the twelve years my father lived 
on that plantation, did I attend any school, and 
that a small one taught by a Southern white woman 
who had owned my father. When I was twelve 
years of age my father moved from the plantation 
on which he had been working " on shares " and 
rented land which he and his family cultivated. 
Soon there were thirteen children in his family, of 
which number I was the second. 

173 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

In December, 1892, I drove a wagon with two 
bales of cotton to a little Georgia town. While 
waiting for the wagon preceding me to move off 
the scales on which the cotton was weighed, I 
heard a colored man, who had heard of Tuskegee 
Institute, telling of its advantages, and he quite 
glowingly recounted the glories of the place as 
they had been related to him. As he proceeded 
he informed those gathered about him that at this 
school a boy could work his way if perchance he 
could reach the institution. I got nearer to him 
and heard and treasured every word he said. Es- 
pecially did I remember his statement that he had 
been informed that some of the boys graduating 
from there had not paid a single cent in cash for 
their education, having worked it all out. 

When I reached home that night I told my 
father of what I had heard. For three successive 
years our crops had failed and my father was more 
than $500 in debt. The prospect of interesting 
him in any project that meant the expenditure of 
money was discouraging, but an eager desire to 
secure an education led me to make him a propo- 
sition, viz.: that he should permit me during the 
next year, 1893, to have full and complete charge 
of the farm, and if I succeeded in settling all of 

174 



THE STORY OF A CARPENTER 

his indebtedness I was to be released to attend 
school at Tuskegee, provided I could secure admit- 
tance, whether he cleared any money or not. This 
proposition my father readily agreed to. He sym- 
pathized with my ambitions, but the heavy burden 
of carrying a large family with short-crop returns 
dwarfed whatever good intentions he might have. 
On the first of January, 1893, those of the fam- 
ily who could work joined me in starting early and 
working late during the whole of the year. We 
ran a two-horse farm. From that year's work we 
gathered 25 bales of cotton, 800 bushels of corn, 
300 bushels of cow-peas, 250 gallons of sugar-cane 
sirup, 5 wagon-loads of pumpkins, a great amount 
of hay and fodder, and picked at night for neigh- 
bors about us, white and black, 25 bales of cotton. 
We had rented two mules and the wagon used that 
year, but now at the close bought two younger, 
stronger mules and a new wagon and paid cash 
for the whole outfit. We settled our indebtedness 
with everybody, and my father, who had earnestly 
worked under my supervision along with the others, 
was very, very happy. Of course, we had a very 
small balance left — not enough to be of any service 
to me in keeping me in school except I should be al- 
lowed to help myself by working. After " laying 

175 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

the crops by " I made home-made baskets during 
the summer and sold them, reahzing about $16. In 
one year I had accompHshed a task my father 
thought impossible of accomplishment. He re- 
ligiously kept his word, and was as enthusiastic 
about my getting off to school as I was. 

I had now learned more of the Tuskegee Insti- 
tute, and was impatient to reach there. Others, too, 
became eager and enthusiastic, and so when I 
started, January 19, 1894, it was a red-letter event 
in our little community. I left home with only 
the $16 I had saved from the sale of my baskets. 
The next morning after reaching Tuskegee I was 
piloted to the Principal's office and my recom- 
mendations requested. I was puzzled. I did not 
Imow what was wanted. I had not followed the 
usual routine and written for permission to enter 
as students are required to do, but had gone ahead, 
thinking the presentation of myself all that would 
be necessary. I had no recommendations, but mus- 
tered courage enough to ask for a trial before be- 
ing refused. My request was granted, and I be- 
came a student — proud event in my life! — of the 
famous Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. 

I had always wanted to be a carpenter ; as long 
ago as I can remember this was my ambition, but 

176 



THE STORY OF A CARPENTER 

when carried to the office of the director of in- 
dustries he refused to assign me to work there, as 
that division was filled, but assigned me instead to 
the sawmilling division. I was not angry, of 
course. I was too glad to be at Tuskegee ; but I was 
bitterly disappointed, especially after I had seen the 
carpenter shop, some of the work of the young 
men, and the imposing buildings on which they had 
been and were working. I was promised the first 
vacancy, and that temporarily eased my sorrow. A 
vacancy did not occur for one and a half years. In 
the meantime I had become reconciled, and had 
worked as earnestly as I could to please the in- 
structor in sawmilHng. I tried to learn all there 
was to learn in that division, and at the end of that 
period could adjust and run proficiently every ma- 
chine in the sawmilling division. The school cut 
then, as it does now, most of the lumber used in 
the carpentry division, and efficient students were 
needed and desired. My instructor was so well 
pleased with my progress that he recommended, 
over my protest, to the director of industries, my 
retention in the division. 

I had kept so busily after the director during 
those eighteen months to allow me to enter the 
shop that he could not well refuse to grant my 

177 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

request when a vacancy occurred. I was admitted 
to the carpenter shop. 

For five years I was an apprentice, doing work 
of every kind. I also took mechanical drawing 
along with carpentry. When I graduated in 1900 
I received not only a diploma from the academic 
department, but a certificate from the carpentry 
division as well. I had improved every oppor- 
tunity, and had a fair knowledge of architectural 
as well as of mechanical drawing. This latter in- 
struction I had made a place for along with my 
other studies. 

Maj. J. B. Ramsey, the Commandant, had been 
so well pleased with my general deportment that 
for years I was coromissioned by him to com- 
mand, as captain, one of the companies of the Tus- 
kegee Institute battalion of cadets. This had 
pleased and encouraged me very much indeed. 
^ To my surprise, three months before my gradu- 
ation I was asked to remain in the employ of the 
Tuskegee Institute as one of the assistant teachers 
in the carpentry division. I had contracted, how- 
ever, to do some work at Montgomery, Ala., and 
I could not accept the place offered. I spent about 
four months working at my trade in Montgomery, 
and was again reminded of the offer made me at 

178 



THE STORY OF A CARPENTER 

Tuskegee. I returned to Tuskegee, but did not re- 
main long, as the Executive Council of the Insti- 
tute recommended me, when application was made 
for a competent man to take charge of the carpen- 
try division of the Fort Valley High and Indus- 
trial School, Fort Valley, Ga. The terms offered 
were satisfactory and I accepted the position. 

I began work here November 9, 1900, in a 
shop 30 feet by 60 feet. No tools and no work- 
benches were provided, only a lot of inexperienced 
boys to whom I was expected to teach carpentry. 
I owned a chest of tools, and these I used until 
the school could secure some. I proceeded at once 
to make work benches, and my boys had their first 
lessons in carpentry in providing these. Quite 
often visitors who come to see us ask if these 
benches were not made at some factory, they are 
so well made. We next proceeded to fit out a 
drawing-room, as I intended that my boys should 
work — as I had been compelled to do from 
the very beginning at Tuskegee — from drawings. 
Everything I had done there had to be carefully 
worked out in advance, and, knowing the value of 
that kind of thing, I did not want these boys to 
have anything less than the kind of instruction 

I had had. We made tables and desks for the 
13 179 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

drawing-room; next we ceiled and finished twelve 
rooms in the main school building that had long 
been left unfinished. All of the work pleased the 
authorities of the school, I have reason to know. 
Near the close of my first term at Fort Valley- 
it was decided to erect a dormitory building for 
girls. I was asked to submit plans and specifica- 
tions. My training as a carpenter at Tuskegee 
had fitted me for just that kind of thing, and I 
set about designing a building that would meet the 
requirements of the young women attending Fort 
Valley. 

My plans were finally accepted, and I thought 
to go on with the erection of the building during 
the summer, as had been planned; but one or two 
of the building committee began to object, urging 
that I was too young, that I had not had enough 
experience, and that a building of that quality 
should be erected by a builder of proved reputa- 
tion. After much delay I was permitted to pro- 
ceed. I began with ten " green " boys, and they, 
under my direction as I worked side by side with 
them, did all of the work except the hanging of 
the window-sashes, doors, etc. I had outside help 
in doing this part of the finishing. The building is 
a real pride to all of us here. It is 36 feet by 78 

180 



THE STORY OF A CARPENTER 

feet, 2^ stories high, has 22 sleeping-rooms, a splen- 
didly arranged dining-room, 36 feet by 36 feet, 
and cost $3,200. No one, hereabouts at least, now 
doubts that I can build anything I say I can. I 
am glad that so soon after beginning the work here 
I was able to prove the claims of my Tuskegee in- 
structors as to my fitness for the position for which 
they had recommended me. 

Unfortunately, before I had completed the 
dormitory for girls, a fire destroyed our main 
school building with the contents. This fire left 
us without class-rooms. We took refuge in the 
Carpenter Shop, and held classes there until money 
was secured with which to build a training-school 
for the lower grades. This latter building I also 
put up entirely with student labor. It contains 
three large rooms, each 25 feet by 30 feet. The 
appointments in every way accord with approved 
hygienic laws. Dr. Wallace Buttrick, Executive 
Secretary of the General Education Board, spoke 
complimentarily of the building when he saw it, as 
one of the few in the State he had seen that met 
all the requirements of a class-room. We were able 
to build it for $1,600. 

Even during the construction of the training- 
school I was drawing the plans for a large brick 

181 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

building to replace the one burned. My plans were 
submitted to friends of the work in the North, and 
by the time we had finished the training-school we 
had money enough to begin the brickwork on the 
new building. By April, 1903, the brickwork was 
complete, and as we had no additional money we 
were compelled to allow the building to stand 
until June, 1904, at which time we were able to 
resume. 

My boys did all of the woodwork, did the hod- 
carrying, and most of the unskilled labor. The 
building cost $8,000, and is 86 feet 8 inches by 52 
feet 8 inches in its dimensions, is 2^ stories high, 
and has a deckle roof with dormer windows. The 
chapel is on the first floor, 6 recitation-rooms on 
the second floor, and 13 sleeping-rooms for boys 
on the one-half third-story floor. A basement for 
storage purposes, 25 feet by 50 feet, is a great 
convenience. 

Of the many contractors and builders who have 
visited our school-grounds none have failed to speak 
in praise of the design, the workmanship, the 
strength, and the relative relation to each other 
of the school buildings with regard to future ad- 
ditions. 

I need not add that this has been very pleasing 
182 



THE STORY OF A CARPENTER 

to me. I was married December 9, 1904, at At- 
lanta, Ga., to Miss Mary E. Hobbs. 

To me Tuskegee has been all in all, and I 
still remember with gratitude the man who, in my 
hearing, spoke so glowingly of the school as I 
weighed my cotton in the little Georgia town away 
back in December, 1892. 



183 



VII 

COTTON-GROWING IN AFRICA 

By John W. Robinson 

As all autobiographical sketches begin, so do 
I begin this one. I was born in Bennettsville, 
S. C, in 1873. Neither of my parents could write 
their names ; but my father could read a little, and 
taught me the alphabet. 

My paternal grandfather was a slave of some 
intelligence. He was a competent carpenter, had 
charge of his master's saw- and grist-mills, and 
kept the accounts of the two mills. His master, 
who was a member of the State Legislature, was 
very kind to him. He allowed him a portion of the 
savings from these industries he was controlling, 
and even promised him his freedom. The latter he 
delayed so long that my grandfather ran away. He 
succeeded in reaching Charleston, S. C. He had 
secured a ticket and was about to take passage for 
Canada, when he was captured and returned to his 
master's home. His master was attending the 
General Assembly of the State of South Carolina, 

184 



COTTON-GROWING IN AFRICA 

and it became the overseer's duty to punish the re- 
turned fugitive. My grandfather never recovered 
from the eiFects of the brutal punishment meted 
out to him for daring to desire freedom in his 
own right. 

My father was the oldest boy and the second 
child in a family of five. He was a farmer and a 
cobbler. At the age of twenty-seven he was mar- 
ried to my mother. 

I suppose the history of my mother's life would 
be monotonous and dull to many ears, but I re- 
member that I never grew tired of hearing her 
relate its somber happenings. She often told us 
how her grandmother could relate the thrilling 
story of her capture on African soil and of being 
brought to America, of the horrors of the passage, 
and of much else that I shall always remember. 

After their marriage my parents began farm- 
ing in Bennettsville, Marlborough County, S. C, 
the place where I was born. I remember most 
vividly that two-roomed log cabin where my par- 
ents' ten children were born — 

" Low and little, and black and old. 
With children as many as it could hold." 

However, my father soon began working for 
wages, and received $10 per month and the pro-^ 

185 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

verbial " rations " — three pounds of meat and a 
peck of meal per week. What a financier he must 
have been, for from that mean sum he managed to 
save $50 or $75 each year, and I still cherish the 
memory of how fondly I felt those crisp green- 
backs once a year. He brought them home every 
Christmas and allowed each member of the family 
to feel them — yes, even caress them. 

When I was about nine years of age I entered 
the public school of the community, which was in 
session about four months in a year, opening late 
in the fall and going through the winter. My 
parents were so delighted and gratified at the prog- 
ress I made that I was occasionally privileged to 
spend one month in the subscription school con- 
ducted near by during the summer. 

When I was fourteen years of age a great sor- 
row visited our home. My mother died. I often 
wonder if any one can realize what it means to lose 
a mother without having suffered that bereave- 
ment. My father did not marry again. 

About this time the authorities opened a school 
nearer us than the one I had been attending, but 
the teachers were usually very incompetent and 
my progress was seriously hindered. 

The absorbing desire of my Hfe had been to 
186 



COTTON-GROWING IN AFRICA 

some day graduate from some institution of learn- 
ing, but I found myself at eighteen years of age 
far from the goal of my ambition. I became 
alarmed. I realized what it would mean to grow 
to manhood in ignorance; I also knew that there 
were seven children younger than I to be cared 
for. I seriously thought the matter over. I 
finally broached it to my father, and he con- 
sented that I should try to make a way for 
myself. 

I rented a small farm, trusting that by culti- 
vating it I would be able to clear enough money 
to begin my education. I began wrong, for I had 
in advance mortgaged my crop. I began with 
$75, but when the year closed I had only $10. 
However, my aspirations were not to be daunted; 
I was resolved on going to school. 

With this $10 I purchased the necessary books, 
paid my entrance fee, and entered the village 
graded school. I was poorly clad, and much of 
the time was without food, but I felt that I could 
not even ask my father for assistance because of 
his responsibility in caring for the younger chil- 
dren. I was constant, however, in my endeavor 
to find work, and finally a companion and I suc- 
ceeded in getting an old farmhouse about three 

187 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

miles from the village in which to live. In a meas- 
ure this suited me, for I loved the country. 

The house was an old, dilapidated one, and I do 
not see now how we stood that first severe winter; 
but though I was in rags and my food was often 
roasted potatoes or peas with a little salt, I did 
not miss a single day's schooling that year, and 
great was my joy and satisfaction when, at the 
end of the year, I stood at the head of my class. 

During this time I had done such work in 
the surrounding neighborhood as could be obtained. 
My Saturdays and afternoons were spent in split- 
ting rails, chopping wood, driving garden palings, 
and doing any other work that would enable me 
to exist. Although I had stinted myself and had 
often gone without food, at the end of the year 
I was $12 in debt. But this was not sufficient to 
make me despair. 

When vacation came I immediately sought 
work, and though I was diligent in my application 
to it when I had obtained it, steady employment 
was not to be had. My wages were never more 
than fifty cents a day, but I often received less. 
For two years I lived in this way. At the expira- 
tion of that time I decided that it would benefit 
me to enter a higher institution of learning. I 

188 



COTTON-GROWING IN AFRICA 

knew that this would mean that I must have more 
remunerative employment. 

By some means my attention was directed to 
the orange industry of Florida, and in the summer 
of 1894 I regretfully left my companions and 
relatives, went to D eland, Fla., and secured the 
desired work. The winter proved to be an unusu- 
ally cold one, and the orange industry was greatly 
hindered; therefore I was soon out of employ- 
ment, and at the season of the year when I most 
needed it. I was not long idle, however, for the 
very cause of my loss of work opened another 
avenue ; I was kept busy chopping wood. Though 
I went to Florida penniless, at the end of six 
months I had saved $60. 

It was at Deland that I learned of the mag- 
nificent opportunities afforded earnest young men 
and women at Tuskegee Institute. I at once made 
application to become a student. That morning 
I did not know that such a school existed; that 
night, while I slept, the Southern Railway was 
bearing my letter of application to Mr. Washing- 
ton. My anxiety almost reached fever-heat dur- 
ing those few intervening days that I waited for 
an answer, and my joy was boundless when it came, 
setting forth the requirements for admittance. I 

189 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

sent a portion of the money I had saved to 
my father. With the rest I bought some necessary 
clothing, and left D eland far behind for Tuskegee. 

I shall always remember how little and insig- 
nificant I felt when I entered the school-grounds 
and was told that all those buildings and all those 
acres of ground were a part of the Tuskegee In- 
stitute. I had read of it in the circular of in- 
formation which was sent me when I applied for 
admission, but the realization was, to me, almost 
overpowering. After paying my entrance fee and 
purchasing my school-books I had $15 left. Thus 
I began what has proved to be a " new life." 

Fifteen dollars were, of course, an inadequate 
sum with which to pay my expenses through the 
day-school, and so I was permitted to enter the 
night-school, as so many others as poor as I had 
done. This means that I was given an opportunity 
to work at some industry during the day and at- 
tend classes at night. I was not only receiving 
training at an industry, being provided with food, 
shelter, and fuel, and receiving instruction at night, 
but I was earning enough over my board to be 
placed to my credit in the school's treasury to help 
pay my board when I should enter the day-school. 

My first term was spent at work on Marshall 
190 



COTTON-GROWING IN AFRICA 

Farm, where the greater part of the school's farm- 
ing was at that time done. 

When I entered Tuskegee I had no thought of 
preparing myself for returning to farm life. 
Even the word " farm " brought to my mind 
visions of dull, hard work and drudgery without 
comforts. I had not been at the Tuskegee Institute 
long, however, before I was led to know that 
" agriculture " is the very highest of all industrial 
callings. I had never known that agriculture had 
so many subdivisions, that soils could be analyzed 
and treated, that rotation of crops enriched the 
soil, that a certain crop planted season after season 
on the same soil made it poor, because it was rid- 
ding it of some life-giving chemical. To me soils 
simply " wore out." But through lectures and 
practical experiments my agricultural horizon be- 
gan to expand, and a sense of the beauty of the 
industry grew upon me. 

It was to me a marvelous thing to go into the 
dairy and take milk but recently milked, pour 
it into the Sharpless Separator, set the machine in 
motion, and behold a stream of rich, sweet cream 
flow from one avenue of escape, while a foamy 
jet of milk passed from another. There, too, I 
learned cheese-making and butter-making. 

191 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

My school life was filled with difficulties be- 
cause of financial embarrassments. I was one of 
the competitors in the first Trinity Church (Bos- 
ton) Prize Contest, founded at the school by Dr. E. 
Winchester Donald, successor of Phillips Brooks, 
and rector of Trinity until his death, and I re- 
member that I was greatly discomfited because 
the socks I wore had no feet in them, and my shoes 
had that afternoon been sewed with thread black- 
ened with soot. 

However, I was the successful contestant, the 
first winner of the prize of $25. The next day 
I provided myself with new shoes and socks. I 
also received my diploma that same year, 1897, 
within two days of receiving the prize, and was 
very happy to receive it and the diploma at the 
same time. 

Two summers and one winter after graduating 
I taught school at Mamie, Ala. When I was not 
teaching I worked on the farm of the family with 
which I boarded. For this work I received very 
little pay, but I had been taught at Tuskegee that 
it was better to work for nothing than to be idle — 
a Booker T. Washington precept. 

The second winter I was first assistant in the 
Ozark city school, Ozark, Ala., and was offered 

192 



COTTON-GROWING IN AFRICA 

the principalship for the next term, but I declined 
in order to further pursue postgraduate studies 
in agriculture at Tuskegee. I remained there for 
six months. I then went West, to Rockford, 111., y^ 
to do practical work in that section for the purpose 
of strengthening and improving the theory and 
practise already learned. 

It was harvesting season and I soon secured 
work. I put all my energy into the work of the 
rugged Western farm and succeeded admirably in 
following the threshing-machine, in husking corn, 
and in doing the other farm labors common to 
Western fall and winter seasons. My first four 
months were spent on the farm of a widow. After 
the harvesting was over she offered me the farm, 
with its implements, barns, horses, and dairy herd, 
if I would remain and pay her certain percentages 
of the profits, but I told her that I was only a 
student in search of knowledge. 

The next spring I secured work with a very 
progressive Irishman. He was a farmer, as well 
as secretary and treasurer of a modern creamery 
and butter factory. This work I preferred, be- 
cause it was along my chosen line, and of a very 
high grade. 

For one year I worked in this establishment, 
193 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

and was not absent from duty even one day. My 
employer once said to me that he had heard and 
also read that Negroes were lazy, shiftless, and un- 
trustworthy. He had not come into contact with 
enough Negroes to draw his own conclusions, so 
he asked me if there were more like me. I told 
him that I did not consider myself an exception, 
but that I had had the advantages of superior 
training at Tuskegee. He did not know before 
that I was a Tuskegee graduate. He seemed sur- 
prised to know that a graduate would work as a 
common farm-hand. He said he had found no 
white ones who would. I then explained to him 
that I was seeking a comprehensive knowledge of 
farming conditions North and South. I value that 
year on those Western farms next to my training 
at Tuskegee. 

I was planning to return to the South and start 
a farm of my own, when I was asked by Mr. Wash- 
ington to join a company of Tuskegee young men 
who were wanted to go to Africa for the purpose 
of experimenting in cotton-growing under the 
German Government. It was a call I could not 
resist. Here was a chance for the largest possible 
usefulness. Here I could have a part in a monu- 
mental undertaking, and I gladly agreed to go. 

194 



COTTON-GROWING IN AFRICA 

The wages offered were flattering, and all expenses 
in connection with the trip were borne by the Ko- 
lonial Komittee of the German Government. The 
Executive Council of the Institute selected Shep- 
herd L. Harris, Allen L. Burks, and myself, all 
graduates of the school, and Mr. James N. Callo- 
way, a member of the Faculty, who had had charge 
of the school's largest farm, and who was selected 
to head the expedition. We sailed from New York 
on November 3, 1900, and reached Togo by way 
of Hamburg on December 31, 1900. Later five 
additional Tuskegee students joined us, but of the 
original party I am the only one left. A report 
of the beginnings of our work was published after 
two years, with elaborate illustrations to com- 
memorate what we had been able to accomplish. 
Samples of the cotton made into hose and various 
other articles were distributed among those inter- 
ested in the success of the experiment. That re- 
port may be secured from the Kolonial-Wirtschaft- 
liches Komittee, Berlin, Germany. 

Not long since I sent to Principal Washington 
a summary of the work we have been trying to do. 
He regularly insists that Tuskegee graduates shell 
send him reports of what they are doing, and my 
letter to him was in response to that request. We 
14 195 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

keep in touch with Tuskegee and its work after 
leaving the institution through a correspondence 
prized by every graduate of the school. The sum- 
mary I include here, as it may be of interest to the 
reader : 

At the outset it was very difficult to excite any 
interest at all in our work on the part of the 
natives. For some reason they mistrust every 
proposition made them by a foreigner, and in the 
beginning they would not even accept the gift of 
cotton-seeds from us. They claimed that if they 
should accept our seeds we would come again and 
claim our own with usury. Many of the Europe- 
ans here said that the natives would never become 
interested in the movement. But we worked on, 
and now already in the farming districts are hun- 
dreds of native cotton farms. Now they no longer 
mistrust us, but they come and ask for cotton-seeds, 
and a conservative estimate places the incoming 
native harvest near the thousand-bale mark. Of 
course the native methods are very irrational. 
They cultivate their cotton altogether as a sec- 
ondary crop. But we are content, at the begin- 
ning, to let them cultivate in their own way. 

We find distributed through the colony not 
less than three distinct species of cotton, with some 
hybrids and varieties; but none of these are indi- 
genous, and, having been left in a neglected state 

196 




EMMETT J. SCOTT. 
Mr. Washington's Executive Secretary. 



COTTON-GROWING IN AFRICA 

for centuries, are consequently not far removed 
from nature and are not so remunerative when 
put under even the best culture. The seeds im- 
ported from America are not able to survive the 
greatly changed conditions of climate. Here is 
our greatest obstacle. Our course was plain. If 
we did not have a plant that exactly suited us, we 
had to make it. 

The production of a commercial plant is very 
important. Our present domestic seeds will yield 
about four hundred pounds of seed-cotton per acre, 
and the character of the fruit and the arrangement 
upon the stalk make it very expensive to harvest. 
Besides, the stalk grows too much to a tree and 
is not prolific proportionately, and the quality of 
the lint is equal to American " middling." We 
are trying to develop a plant that will yield 1,000 
pounds of seed-cotton to the acre, with a lint equal 
in quality to fully good " middling " or to Allen's 
lyg-inch staple. 

Now suppose we succeed in making this plant 
as I have above outlined; the 4,000 acres under 
cultivation would then at least produce 2,000 bales 
of seed-cotton where they now produce but 1,000 
bales. We can see how greatly the annual income 
of the natives will be increased. Such a plant is 
forthcoming. 

Through selection and crossing of American 
and native cottons we have obtained a new variety, 
which is satisfactory in every primary respect. It 

197 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

is more hardy than the average American plant and 
fifty per cent more productive than the average na- 
tive plant. A sample of the lint of this new, would- 
be variety was submitted to the Chamber of Com- 
merce in Berlin, and it was pronounced good in 
every way, and brought in January, 1904, about 
twenty cents a pound. 

There is one feature that I would like to speak 
about before I have done with the subject, be- 
cause I know it will please you. In one of the 
letters you wrote me some time ago you advised 
me to " labor earnestly, quietly, and soberly, dis- 
charging my duty in the way that would eventu- 
ally make me one of the most influential persons 
in the community." Being faithful in small things 
is one of the fundamental principles of Tuskegee, 
and is what I am able to do without even striving. 
It has become natural for me to be faithful, it 
matters not how small or insignificant the service. 
I find myself to-day possessing much influence in 
the work in which I am now engaged. 

In order to make secure the work begun and to 
insure a normal and well-balanced progress for 
the future, it was recommended to institute, along 
with the present undertaking, what I am pleased 
to call " A Cotton-School and Plant-Breeding Sta- 
tion." At this school are gathered young men 
from all over the colony, who come for a two-years' 
course in modern methods of farming. The 
boys are to be taught some of the simple rules 

198 



COTTON-GROWING IN AFRICA 

and practises of agriculture. The boys are 45 
in number, representing the most intelligent classes ; 
the station consists of 250 acres of land, 8 oxen, 
2 asses, 1 horse, farm implements, cotton-gin, press, 
etc. Such an institution appeared to me necessary 
to the healthy progress of the undertaking. There 
will soon be in operation 3 ginning- and pressing- 
stations run by steam-power, besides a dozen or 
more hand-gins. This, I believe, tells the whole 
story. My health is very good. I hope you will 
write me often, because your letters are always so 
interesting and helpful. 

That my life has been as useful and successful 
as it has is due to the training and inspiration re- 
ceived at Tuskegee Institute, perhaps not so much 
to the agricultural department, for I did not finish 
that course, but to the general awakening and 
stimulating influence which permeates and is a part 
of the training of Tuskegee students. 

And now while I write, and daily as I work, 
I am prompted on to better and stronger efforts 
because of the Tuskegee in embryo that looms 
before me. And as I think, and work, and write, 
I am gratified because of the assurance that I 
am only one of that increasing host whose loyal 
hearts and useful lives shall make Tuskegee live 
forever. 

199 



VIII 

THE STORY OF A TEACHER OF 
COOKING 

By Mary L. Dotson 

I GRADUATED with the Class of 1900, Tuskegee 
Institute. It was the culmination of an event to 
which my mother and I had long looked forward. 

I was born in 1879, in a small country village 
in the southwestern part of Alabama. My mother 
was the exceptional colored woman of our com- 
munity. She was a dressmaker and tailoress and 
had all the work she could do. She owned her own 
home, a quite comfortable one, and earned con- 
tinuously from her work a tidy sum of money. 

I have always counted myself fortunate to 
have had such a home and such a mother. Very 
few of the colored people about us owned their 
own homes; the village school was a poor make- 
shift, and it was in session only two to four months 
in a year — that is, when some one could be secured 
to teach it for the very small salary paid. Both 
my father and mother had great respect for educa- 

200 



A TEACHER OF COOKING 

tionally equipped people, and desired that their 
children should have the opportunity to secure edu- 
cational advantages. They tried in every possible 
way to interest the people in their own welfare, 
at least to the extent of supplementing the meager 
public-school fund, so as to provide decent edu- 
cational facilities for the children. This effort 
failed. My mother had a room added to her home, 
and in it conducted, with my sister's help, a school 
for the children of the community. Two of my 
sisters had been sent away to school, one to Selma 
and the other to Talladega. In addition to the 
school conducted at our home, my mother was able 
to get the cooperation of some of the people in 
other parts of the county, and two other schools 
were started. These schools were afterward taken 
up, and have since become helpful factors in the 
life of the people. 

My first lessons were given in the home, and 
my mother always claimed that I learned quite 
rapidly. As soon as I was old enough she also 
made me take lessons in sewing. Sewing made 
no appeal to me, however, but cooking did, and 
whenever possible I would steal away to my grand- 
mother's to cook with her. Most of the time I was 
only permitted to wash dishes, but after a while 

201 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

I was permitted to help with her cooking. Soon I 
was able to make cakes for my father's store. He 
was always very proud that his " little " daughter 
was able to replenish his stock when it was ex- 
hausted. 

At eight years of age I was sent to Meridian, 
Miss., to stay with an older sister and attend 
school. The advantages there were far superior 
to those provided for me at my home. After re- 
maining two years at Meridian I went to Mem- 
phis, again in search of better school facilities. 
I have said that even at my age I had a fondness 
for cooking. At Memphis I had my first cooking 
lesson, this lesson being given along with the eighth 
grade work of the public school. I was delighted, 
but my aunt refused to allow me to practise in the 
home, however, and so all the practise I got was 
at school. 

While in Memphis, a Tuskegee Institute grad- 
uate came there to teach in the colored public 
schools. Though we had lived in Alabama, we had 
not, until that time, heard of the Tuskegee Insti- 
tute. The loyalty of that graduate to the school, 
the stories of the opportunities provided, and all, 
delighted my mother, my aunt, and myself, and 
it was decided that I should be sent there. 

202 



A TEACHER OF COOKING 

I entered the Tuskegee Institute in Decem- 
ber, 1894, and was assigned, after examination, to 
the Junior class, the first class of the normal de- 
partment. I remained at Tuskegee during the 
following summer and worked in the students' 
dining-room as a waitress. The next year I was 
compelled to enter the night-school so as to help 
lighten my mother's burden. I knew nothing of 
the science of foods; nothing at all, at that time, 
of anything that indicated that cooking is a real 
science. None but girls of the Senior class were 
then permitted to take cooking lessons, but I was 
often able to provide some excuse for visiting the 
very small and incompletely furnished room used 
for that purpose. I picked up much useful in- 
formation in that way. 

When I reached the A Middle class, next to 
the Senior class, the young women of that class 
were permitted to take cooking lessons. 

Now I was to learn cooking. I had long de- 
sired the opportunity, and the chance had come at 
last. The study of foods was among the first les- 
sons brought to my attention. While anxious to 
know all that was to be taught, I could never see 
the reasons for knowing. I wanted to cook food, 
and that, with me, was the end. 

203 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

I began to study chemistry in the academic 
department, and when it was applied in my cook- 
ing lessons my eyes were opened. I now saw much 
that I had not dreamed of. A cooking teacher, 
a noted expert from Wisconsin, came to the school 
about that time and lectured not only to the cook- 
ing classes, but to the young women teachers, and 
to the married women of the Institute families. 
I was especially detailed to work with her, and 
was put to working out a diet for the students' 
boarding department. This instruction, with 
that of my regular instructor, convinced me that 
here was a real profession. I continued until 
the end of my school days to carry, along with 
all of my academic work, progressive work in 
cooking. 

I had made such progress that when I came 
to graduate, Mrs. Washington, who is in charge 
of the industries for girls, offered me a vacancy in 
the cooking division. I did not feel that I was 
adequate to the requirements of the place, and so 
remarked to Mrs. Washington and my instructor. 
They recommended that I spend the summer at 
the Chautauqua Summer School, New York. I 
prepared to go immediately following the Tuske- 
gee commencement exercises. A scholarship was 

204 



A TEACHER OF COOKING 

secured for me. Domestic science teachers of 
proved efficiency are in charge there. They were 
pleased with what I had already been able to ac- 
complish. My work was with the classes taking 
courses in chemistry, physiology, bacteriology, 
management of classes, and cooking demonstra- 
tion. 

At the end of the summer I felt stronger than 
ever, and returned to Tuskegee in the fall with real 
enthusiasm. I first began my work in the little 
room in which I had been taught. Another aca- 
demic class of girls had now been admitted to the 
cooking classes, the three upper ones. 

When Dorothy Hall, the building in which all 
of the industries for girls are located, was com- 
pleted, my division was given a suite of rooms, 
an assistant was provided, and the work broadened 
and made more useful than ever. Under this di- 
vision we now have a model kitchen, a regular 
kitchen in which the practise-cooking of the girls 
is done, two dining-rooms, a model bedroom, a 
model sitting-room, and a bathroom. 

Principal Washington has insisted from year 
to year that, since cooking is so fundamental, every 
young woman, in the day-school at least, shall 
take lessons in cooking. For the current school 

205 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

year, 1904-'05, 458 young women are receiving 
instruction. 

The course covers, in its entirety, four years, 
but is so comprehensive that even one and two 
years fit young women for the cooking of ordinary 
foods. Each of these girls is required to attend 
upon the outhned catalogue course of instruction, 
and in addition, from time to time, upon lectures 
bearing upon the several subjects comprehended 
under domestic science. The furnishing of the 
rooms is simple, but ample; the furniture, in the 
main, being made by the young women in the up- 
holstering division. It has been widely praised by 
all who have seen it. 

After teaching for two years, I requested leave 
of absence for one year so as to attend the Do- 
mestic-Science School of the Young Women's 
Christian Association, Boston. This additional 
study, of course, helped me very much. My 
studies were of foods, of the home, the teaching 
of demonstration and settlement classes, etc. INIuch 
other useful information also came my way. 

When I returned to Tuskegee the next year 
I felt more able than ever to be of assistance to 
the girls who come to us. I was better able to out- 
line my course of study. The thing that pleased 

206 



A TEACHER OF COOKING 

me greatly, however, both at Chautauqua and at 
Boston, was the fact that my former Tuskegee 
training was commented on so favorably, as having 
been planned along properly comprehensive lines. 

No part of the Tuskegee Institute work is more 
valuable than that of the domestic training. It 
is the policy of the institution to give special at- 
tention to the training of girls in all that pertains 
to dress, health, physical culture, and general 
liousekeeping. 

The girls are constantly under the strict and 
watchful care of the dean of the woman's de- 
partment. Miss Jane E. Clark, a graduate of 
Oberlin College, a woman of liberal attainments 
and culture, and an example to them in all that 
makes for the development of character; of Mrs. 
Booker T. Washington, the director of industries 
for girls, and of the women teachers, a body in 
every way representative of the qualities the girls 
are besought to seek to attain. A corps of matrons, 
four in number, specially assist the dean of the 
woman's department and keep in close individual 
touch with the girls. 

My own connection with the girls is in the cook- 
ing classes, as I have indicated, and in the Parker 
Model Home and the Practise Cottage. The 

207 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

Parker Model Home is the home of the young 
women who each year reach the Senior class. 
Eight large, conveniently arranged rooms are set 
apart for them, and they are taught things by 
having to do them. The class, as a whole, is 
required to do actual work in the line of general 
housekeeping, cooking and serving food, and laun- 
dering. 

In order to give practical demonstration in 
housekeeping and to develop the sense of respon- 
sibility in the work, a four-room house has been 
set aside, in which the Senior girls " keep house." 
Four girls at a time live in this house and have 
the entire care of it. They do all the work that 
pertains to ordinary housekeeping, from the Mon- 
day morning's washing to the Saturday's prepara- 
tion for Sunday. They are also charged with 
the responsibility of purchasing the food supplies 
which they consume. Three dollars are allowed 
as the weekly expenditure for food. In view of 
the low prices that obtain for provisions here, four 
girls can live comfortably on this small allowance 
and have variety and plenty, and at the same time 
very wholesome food. Thus the lesson of economy 
is taught in the most effective way. The girls 
learn to appreciate the purchasing power of money, 

208 




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W 33 

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A TEACHER OF COOKING 

a kind of training which boarding-students, who 
have so much done for them, do not get. They 
acquire the habit of evolving their own plans, of 
exercising unhampered their own tastes. Regu- 
larity, system, exactness, neatness, and the feeling 
of responsibility, are all developed in this way. 

In both the Parker Model Home and the Prac- 
tise Cottage I have charge, with my assistant, of 
the oversight of what is done in the direction of 
providing food, cooking it, serving it, etc. 

Twenty-one classes a week are now taught ; the 
preparatory classes one hour per week, and the 
normal classes two to three hours per week. The 
girls are required to work in groups, to wear white 
aprons, caps, and sleeves, and to bring to the classes 
towels and holders. Each girl brings her own blank 
books and keeps, through the year, a full rej)ort 
of each lesson given. 

Most of the girls who come to us know abso- 
lutely nothing of cooking and housekeeping. 
They are, as a rule, like most beginners, more 
anxious to make cakes, candies, pies, etc., than 
to make bread, to care for utensils, and learn the 
practical things most necessary. Improvement 
soon follows, however. 

We do some outside " extension work," in ad- 
209 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

dition to what has been enumerated: a cooking 
class in the town of Tuskegee for those unable 
to attend the school at all, and classes for the chil- 
dren at the Children's House, the model training- 
school of the institution, where they are given un- 
derstandable lessons in cooking and housekeeping. 
A bedroom, a dining-room, a bathroom, and a 
kitchen are also provided in connection with the 
Children's House. 

I am happy in the thought that I have a part 
in this fundamental, home-building part of the in- 
struction being given the girls who come from 
thirty-six States and territories of the Union, and 
from Cuba and Porto Rico and other foreign 
countries, to attend this famous school, of which 
I am myself a graduate. 

When the girls are fitted to make better homes, 
a better people are the result. To have some part 
in this work was a fond wish while a student, and 
is a prized privilege now that I have the oppor- 
tunity to render some slight service in return for 
all that Tuskegee has done for me. 



210 



IX 
A WOMAN'S WORK 

By Cornelia Bowen 

Of myself and the work I have done there is 
not a great deal to say. I was born at Tuskegee, 
Ala., on a part of the very ground now occupied 
by the famous Tuskegee Institute. The building 
first used by the school as an industrial building for 
girls was the house in which I was born. That 
old building (and two others, as well) is carefully 
preserved by the institution as an old landmark, 
and never do I go to Tuskegee that I do not 
search it out among the more imposing and pre- 
tentious buildings which have come during the 
later years of the school's history. This building 
and the two other small ones were on the property 
when it was acquired by Principal Washington. 

My mother lived the greater part of her life at 
this place as the slave of Colonel William Bowen, 
who owned the plot of ground upon which the 
Tuskegee Institute now stands. The birthplace of 
my mother was Baltimore, Md. She was taught 
15 211 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

to read by her master's daughter in Baltimore, and 
was never forbidden to read by those who owned 
her in Alabama. 

When a child, I could never understand why 
she read so well and could not write. I was very 
sorry at times that she could read and was not 
like other children's mothers whom I knew. She 
always knew when I did not get my lessons, and 
often the hours of play that were dear to me 
were taken away until my reading lesson was 
learned. Sundays, with my sisters gathered about 
her knees, we would sit for hours listening as 
mother would read church hymns for us. These 
days were days of freedom, as I do not remember, 
and know nothing of, those of slavery. My mother 
always refrained from telling her children fright- 
ful stories of the awful sufferings of the slave 
days. She occupied the position of seamstress and 
house-servant in her mistress's home, and was never 
allowed to mingle with plantation slaves. 

My first teacher was a good-hearted Southern 
white woman, who knew my mother well and lived 
in the town of Tuskegee. 

She taught me to read from McGuffey's First 
Reader. I often read my lessons by looking at the 
pictures, for I did not know one word from an- 

212 



A WOMAN'S WORK 

other — so far as the letters were concerned. She 
detected one day, however, that I was looking out 
into the street and at the same time reading what 
I supposed to be the lesson. From that time on 
she devoted herself to teaching me so that I should 
know letters, and that I should read properly. 
She always claimed that I was an apt pupil. At 
any rate, at a very early age I was able to both 
read and write. As I grew older I was sent with 
my sisters to the public schools of Tuskegee. It 
was always my ambition, it is not immodest to 
say, to excel in whatever I undertook. That which 
brought tears to my eyes quicker than any other 
one thing was to have some member of my class 
recite a better lesson, or " turn me down " — that 
is, go up ahead of me in the class. 

Having been brought up in the Methodist Sun- 
day-school, I later joined the Methodist Church. 
Mr. Lewis Adams, a Trustee of the Tuskegee In- 
stitute, was then Superintendent of the Methodist 
Sunday-school. He was very desirous that the 
young boys and girls of the Sunday-school should 
take an active part in the work. I was given a 
class of girls to teach much older than myself. 
They tried to disgust me at times by paying no 
attention to my teaching. I was not to be dis- 

213 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

couraged, although I cried many times because of 
their conduct. My own sister, who was a member 
of the class, also rebelled because I was younger 
than she; she thought that she should be teaching 
me instead of having it otherwise. It was the 
common opinion of the girls that even if I could 
read better than any of them, they were older 
and should be shown the preference. I owe much 
of my interest in the study of the Bible to my 
mother and to Mr. Lewis Adams, the faithful 
worker and Sunday-school Superintendent. Mr. 
Adams was in those early days as he is now, the 
leader of the colored people of the town of Tus- 
kegee in all that went to make for the uplifting 
of his people. I can pay no better tribute to him 
than to quote what Principal Washington him- 
self says in his monumental autobiography, Up 
from Slavery: 

In the midst of the difficulties which I en- 
countered in getting the little school started, and 
since then through a period of nineteen years, 
there are two men among all the many friends of 
the school in Tuskegee upon whom I have de- 
pended constantly for advice and guidance; and 
the success of the undertaking is largely due to 
these men, from whom I have never sought any- 

214 



A WOMAN'S WORK 

thing in vain. I mention them simply as types. 
One is a white man and an ex-slaveholder, Mr. 
George W. Campbell; the other is a black man 
and an ex-slave, Mr. Lewis Adams. These were 
the men who wrote to General Armstrong for a 
teacher. 

Mr. Campbell is a merchant and banker, and 
had had little experience in dealing with matters 
pertaining to education. Mr. Adams was a me- 
chanic, and had learned the trades of shoemaking, 
harness-making, and tinsmithing during the days 
of slavery. He had never been to school a day 
in his life, but in some way he had learned to read 
and write while a slave. From the first, these two 
men saw clearly what my plan of education was, 
sympathized with me, and supported me in every 
effort. In the days which were darkest financially 
for the school, Mr. Campbell was never appealed 
to when he was not willing to extend all the aid 
in his power. I do not know two men — one an 
ex-slaveholder, one an ex-slave — whose advice and 
judgment I would feel more like following in 
everything which concerns the life and develop- 
ment of the school at Tuskegee than those of these 
two men. 

I have always felt that Mr. Adams, in a large 
degree, derived his unusual powers of mind from 
the training given his hands in the process of mas- 
tering well three trades during the days of 
slavery. 

215 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

I did not graduate from the public schools as 
children do nowadays in the cities. Mr. Booker T. 
Washington's coming to Tuskegee and the estab- 
lishment of the Tuskegee Normal School put an 
end to the public-school work on " Zion Hill," 
where the Tuskegee public school for colored chil- 
dren was located. I was one of the first of the 
students examined for entrance in the school. Mr. 
Washington gave the examination in arithmetic, 
grammar, and history. I never knew what a sen- 
tence was, nor that it had a subject and a predi- 
cate before he said so. I doubted very seriously the 
existence of such terms as these new ones men- 
tioned b}'' him. I thought I knew grammar, and 
I did, so far as I had been taught, but I had no 
insight into its real meaning and use. Mr. Wash- 
ington decided after my examination that I would 
make a good Junior pupil. It was all new to 
me and I could not understand all of the new 
words, even though simple they were, used by him. 
He himself took charge of our classes, and I have 
always been very proud that I can say that he 
was my teacher. He was most particular in re- 
gard to spelling and the right use of verbs. As 
a history teacher he was the best I have had the 
privilege of studying under. I have often said 

216 



A WOMAN'S WORK 

that if he could teach the classes in the beginning 
of history and grammar, and give talks on spelling 
at Tuskegee as he did when I was a pupil there, 
many who finish at Tuskegee would be thankful 
in the years to come. However, he can not do this 
until he is relieved of the great burden of raising 
funds for the school. 

The industrial departments at Tuskegee were 
not, of course, so elaborate and so many while I 
was a pupil there. My four years at Tuskegee 
were given wholly to class-room work. To my 
class, that graduated in 1885 — the first one to grad- 
uate, we proudly boast — three Peabody medals 
were awarded for excellence in scholarship. Our 
diplomas were also graded. We took an examina- 
tion for the medals, as there were ten in the gradu- 
ating class. I was awarded one of the medals. 
The Class of '85 had high ideals and always re- 
gretted that any member should receive a second- 
grade diploma. I was very thankful to learn after 
two weeks' waiting that, in the opinion of the 
Faculty, I was worthy of a first-grade diploma. 

After graduating, I was employed as the prin- 
cipal of the training-school — now known as the 
" Children's House " — of the Tuskegee Institute. 
Feeling that I could be of more service to my peo- 

217 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

pie, and could better teach in the outside world 
the principles for which Tuskegee stands, I re- 
signed my work at Tuskegee, after several terms, 
for a broader field of usefulness. 

A call reached Mr. Washington in 1888 for 
a teacher to begin a work in the vicinity of Mt. 
Meigs, Ala., similar to the work done at Tuske- 
gee, but, of course, on a smaller scale. Mr. E. N. 
Pierce, of Plainville, Conn., had resolved to do 
something in the way of providing better school fa- 
cilities for the colored people living on a large 
plantation, into the possession of which he had 
come. Mr. Washington answered the call while 
in Boston, and telegraphed me that he thought me 
the proper person to take charge of and carry on 
the settlement work Mr. Pierce and his friends 
had in mind. 

I found at Mt. Meigs, after studiously investi- 
gating conditions, that the outlook for support was 
far from hopeful. Not one person in the whole 
community owned a foot of land, and heavy crop 
mortgages were the burden of every farmer. It 
became evident at once that pioneer work was 
very much needed. Homes were neglected, and 
the sacredness of family life was unknown to most 
of the people. The prospect was a gloomy one. 

218 



A WOMAN'S WORK 

The little Baptist church in which the older 
people gathered for worship two Sundays in each 
month badly needed repairing. 

I began first of all to connect myself with the 
Sunday-school, and taught there every Sunday. I 
organized a large class of the older people and en- 
couraged them in every way to attend the Sunday- 
school every Sunday with the children. None of 
these mothers or fathers could read or write. 

I taught them Scripture verses by repeating 
verse after verse till they were able to recite them 
for me. I also sought to teach them to read, and 
quite a large number can read now because of 
the opportunities provided by my Sunday-school 
class. I have kept this class of older people to- 
gether, and it is one of the most active ones of 
all. We have studied together many other things 
aside from the Sunday-school lessons, and it has 
been necessary to do so, because the people have 
none of the opportunities provided for those who 
live in the towns and cities. I was early much en- 
couraged to note that my efforts were appreciated 
by the people. 

I was often called upon to act as arbiter in all 
kinds of difficult and unpleasant disputes involv- 
ing family relations and other differences among 

219 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

the people. Many and many a time did I take the 
place of the minister and speak to the people when 
he could not be present. 

To teach the people self-help, the surest sign 
of progress, we decided to plan for a main school 
building which should mark the center of our ac- 
tivities. This building we were able to erect at a 
cost of $2,000, and it is a satisfaction to the people 
of the community that they alone paid every cent 
of the cost, not one penny coming from the out- 
side. The struggle was a long one, a hard one, with 
bad crops and other hard conditions interfering 
with our plans. 

This building is a two-story one, well venti- 
lated, roomy, and accommodates 300 pupils. From 
the first we have sought to follow in the footsteps 
of the parent institution, and have had the indus- 
tries taught; agriculture was introduced at once. 

A large Trades Building was soon erected and 
teachers from Tuskegee secured to help in the 
work. Blacksmithing, wheelwrighting, carpentry, 
painting, and agriculture have been provided for 
the young men, and cooking, laundering, house- 
keeping, and sewing for the young women. 

The following buildings we now have in ad- 
dition to those named: a dormitory for girls, a 

220 



A WOMAN'S WORK 

blacksmithing-shop, and a teachers' home. More 
than 4,000 pupils have come under the influence 
of the school. 

I have continuously, for seventeen years, with 
the exception of a short period, been in charge 
of the school; during the absence referred to I 
was studying in New York city, and afterward, 
through the generosity of a friend, was able to 
spend one year in Queen Margaret's College, 
Glasgow, Scotland. 

I am pleased with the progress the people have 
made. Many now own their own homes, and eight 
and ten persons are no longer content to sleep in 
one-room log cabins, as was only too true during 
the earlier years of my work. I have regularly 
had " mothers' meetings," and these have raised 
the home life of the people to a higher standard. 
I know what I am saying when I state that sacred 
family ties are respected and appreciated as never 
before in this immediate region. 

The emotional church life of the people no 
longer prevails hereabouts, and the minister 
preaches forty minutes, instead of two hours as 
formerly. 

Many farmers are out of debt, and a mortgage 
upon a man's crop is as disreputable as a saloon. 

221 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

The Mt. Meigs Institute is the first school of 
its kind in Alabama to demonstrate the fact that 
a school planted among the people in the rural dis- 
tricts of the South will make for intelligent, honest, 
thrifty citizenship. The success of this work made 
possible the establishment of many similar schools 
that have been planted in Alabama and other parts 
of the South. 

Of the young men and women who have at- 
tended my school I can not speak too highly. 
Sixty have graduated, and fifty-seven of the num- 
ber are still living. Not only they, but many who 
could not afford to stay and graduate, are at work 
in an effort to help their less fortunate brethren. 
Thirty-six of my graduates have taken academic or 
trade courses in other schools, twenty-one of them 
at Tuskegee Institute. Ten have graduated from 
Tuskegee, or from other schools. Thirty-eight of 
them have learned trades, and all of them are 
at work and prosperous. They include dress- 
makers, cooks, housekeepers, laundresses, carpen- 
ters, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, painters, etc. Sev- 
eral are successful farmers, and one of the girls is 
a large cotton-planter and general farmer. Two 
are successful merchants in Birmingham, Ala. ; one 
is a prominent minister, having also taken a course 

222 



A WOMAN'S WORK 

at the Virginia Union Seminary, Richmond, Va.; 
one is in charge of an orphan asylum, and several 
are teachers; one taught with me for seven years 
after having also graduated from Tuskegee. 
Thirty have married, fifteen have bought homes, 
one has property valued at $7,000, others have 
property ranging in value from $800 to $2,000. 
Of the sixty, only four have failed to maintain 
their moral character. 

Six teachers are now employed; we really need 
another. About 30 boarding pupils are regularly 
enrolled, with 250 pupils in daily attendance from 
near-by homes. 

The school is conducted just as economically 
as it well can be; the annual expense is about 
$2,000, of which sum I have insisted that the people 
themselves shall annually meet one-half. 

If I have been of any service to my people, I 
owe it all to Mr. Washington and to one of the 
noblest women that ever lived, Mrs. Booker T. 
Washington, nee Davidson, both of whom indeli- 
bly impressed upon me while attending the Tuske- 
gee Institute those lessons which led me to want to 
spend myself in the helping of my people. 



223 



X 

UPLIFTING THE SUBMERGED 
MASSES 

By W. J. Edwards 

I WAS born in Snow Hill, Wilcox County, Ala., 
in the year 1870. My mother died when I was 
twelve months old. About five or six years after 
this, perhaps, my father went away from Snow 
Hill; the next I heard he was dead. Thus at the 
age of six I was left without father or mother. I 
was then placed in the care of my old grandmother, 
who did all that was in her power to send me to the 
school located near us. Often for weeks I would 
go to school without anything but bread to eat. 
Occasionally she could secure a little piece of meat. 

I well remember one morning, when I had 
started to school and she had given me all the 
meat that we had in the house, how it worried me 
that she should have nothing left for herself but 
bread. Worrying over our cramped condition, I 
resolved that what she did for me should not be 
thrown away. I longed for the time when I could 
repay her for all she had done for me. 

224 



UPLIFTING THE SUBMERGED 

At the age of twelve it pleased the Almighty 
God to take from me my grandmother, my only de- 
pendence. I was now left to fight the battle of 
life alone. I need not tell of the hard times and 
sufferings that I experienced until I entered school 
at the Tuskegee Institute. But knowing that I 
was without parents, and being sick most of the 
time, my hardships can be imagined. 

Through a minister I heard of the Tuskegee 
Normal and Industrial Institute in the early part 
of 1888, and so favorably was it recommended 
that I decided I would rent two acres of land 
and raise a crop, and take the proceeds and go to 
Tuskegee the following fall. After paying my 
rents and other small debts I had $20 left with 
which to buy my clothes and start for Tuskegee, 
which I did, starting on the 27th of December, 
1888, and arriving at Tuskegee on the first day of 
January, 1889, with $10. I had walked most of 
the way. I was at Tuskegee for four and one-half 
years. I managed to stay there for that length of 
time by working one day in the week and every 
other Saturday during the term and all of the 
vacations. 

During my Senior year I was helped by Mr. 
R. O. Simpson, the owner of the plantation on 

225 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

which I was reared. I had trouble that year in 
deciding just what I should do after graduation. 
^ It had been my conviction that I must be a lawyer 
or a minister. In contemplating the idea of be- 
coming a lawyer, however, I could not see wherein 
I could carry out the Tuskegee Idea of uplifting 
the masses. The ministerial profession was very 
little better, since the work of the minister in our 
section of the country must be limited almost 
wholly to one denomination. So I finally de- 
cided to try to plant an institution similar to the 
Tuskegee School, an undenominational one, in a 
section of Alabama where such work should be 
needed. I chose, as my field of labor, Snow Hill, 
the place from which I had gone to enter school 
at Tuskegee. 

The school is now known as the Snow Hill 
Normal and Industrial Institute, and is located in 
the very center of the " Black Belt " of the State 
of Alabama. This is a much-used term; it is 
not applicable, however, to every Southern State, 
neither does it apply to every county in any one 
State. It is only to certain counties in certain 
States to which it may properly be applied. Wil- 
cox and the seven adjoining counties constitute 
one of these sections in Alabama. The latest cen- 

226 



UPLIFTING THE SUBMERGED 

sus shows that these eight counties have a colored 
population of 201,539, and a white population of 
69,915. 

Alabama has sixty-seven counties, with a total 
colored population of 827,307. Thus it will be seen 
that one-eighth of the counties contain one-fourth 
of the entire colored population. Because the col- 
ored people outnumber the white people in such 
great proportion, this is called the " Black Belt " 
of the State. These counties lie in the valley of the 
Alabama River, and constitute the most fertile 
section of the State. 

During the early settlement of the State, white 
men coming into these fertile counties not only 
would settle as much land as a family of four or 
five in number could cultivate, but as much as they 
were able to buy Negroes to cultivate. Quite a few 
families with only five or six in number would have 
land enough to work from 100 to 1,000 Negroes. 
One can see from this how a few white families 
would, as they often did, own a whole county. 
Now the Negro is not migratory in his nature; 
having been brought to these counties during 
slavery, he has remained here in freedom. He is 
not, therefore, primarily responsible for his be- 
ing here in such great numbers. These white f am- 
is 227 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

ilies settled in little villages seven or eight miles 
apart. The distances between were made up of 
their plantations, on which were thousands of 
slaves. Only a few Negroes were employed as 
domestics in comparison with the great numbers 
who worked on plantations. It was only these 
few who, in learning to serve the white man, 
properly got a glimpse of real home life. The 
masses had absolutely no idea of such a life ; noth- 
ing was done that would lead them to secure any 
such knowledge. 

Since their emancipation the masses of these 
people have had neither competent preachers nor 
teachers ; consequently most of them have remained 
hopelessly ignorant even until this day. One hear- 
ing the great condemnation heaped upon the Ne- 
gro in these sections for his failure to measure up 
to the standards of true citizenship and to proper 
standards of life would get the idea that the proud 
Anglo-Saxon has spent a great deal of time in 
trying to teach him the fundamental principles that 
underlie life; but this is not the case. There are 
exceptions to all rules, however, and here and there 
one may find noble and patriotic white men laboring 
for the uplift of fallen humanity without regard 
to race, color, or previous condition. 

228 



UPLIFTING THE SUBMERGED 

During the summer of 1893, after returning 
from Tuskegee, being anxious to learn more of 
the real condition of our people in the " Black 
Belt," I visited most of the places in Wilcox 
County and a few places in the counties of Mon- 
roe, Butler, Dallas, and Lowndes, making the 
entire journey on foot. 

It was a bright and beautiful morning in June 
when I started from my home, a log cabin. More 
than two hundred Negroes were in the near-by 
fields plowing corn, hoeing cotton, and singing 
those beautiful songs often referred to as planta- 
tion melodies. Notably, I am Going to Roll in my 
Jesus' Arms; O Freedom! Before I'd be a Slave 
I'd be Carried to My Grave, etc., may be men- 
tioned. With the beautiful fields of corn and cot- 
ton outstretched before me, and the shimmering 
brook like a silver thread twining its way through 
the golden meadows, and then through verdant 
fields, giving water to thousands of creatures as it 
passed, I felt that the earth was truly clothed in 
His beauty and the fulness of His glory. 

But I had scarcely gone beyond the limits of 
the field when I came to a thick undergrowth of 
pines. Here we saw old pieces of timber and two 
posts. 

229 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

" This marks the old cotton-gin house," said 
Uncle Jim, my companion, and then his counte- 
nance grew sad; after a sigh he said: " I have seen 
many a Negro whipped within an inch of his life 
at these posts. I have seen them whipped so badly 
that they had to be carried away in wagons. Many 
never did recover." 

From this our road led first up-hill, then down, 
and finally through a stretch of woods until we 
reached Carlowville. This was once the most aris- 
tocratic village of the southern part of Dallas 
County. Perhaps no one who owned less than 
a hundred slaves was able to secure a home within 
its borders. Here still are to be seen the stately 
mansions of the Lydes, the Lees, the Wrumphs, 
the Bibbses, the Youngbloods, and the Reynoldses. 
Many of these mansions have been partly rebuilt 
and remodeled to conform to modern styles of 
architecture, while others have been deserted and 
are now fast decaying. Usually these mansions 
are occupied by others than the original families. 
The original families have sold out or have 
died out. 

In Carlowville stands the largest white church 
in Dallas or Wilcox Counties. It has a seating 
capacity of 1,000, excluding the balcony, which, 

230 



UPLIFTING THE SUBMERGED 

during slavery, was used exclusively for the Ne- 
groes of the families attending. 

Our stay in Carlowville was necessarily short, 
as the evening sun was low and the nearest place 
for lodging was two miles ahead. Before reach- 
ing this place we came to a large one-room log 
cabin, 30 feet by 36 feet, on the road-side, with a 
double door and three holes for windows cut in the 
sides. There was no chimney nor anything to show 
that the room could be heated in cold weather. 
This was the Hope-well Baptist Church. Here 
500 members congregated one Sunday in each 
month and spent the entire day in eating, shouting, 
and " praising God for His goodness toward the 
children of men." Here also the three months' 
school was taught during the winter. A few hun- 
dred yards beyond this church brought us to the 
home of a Deacon Jones. 

He was living in the house occupied by the 
overseer of the plantation during slavery. It was 
customary for Deacon Jones to care for strangers 
who chanced to come into the community, espe- 
cially for the preachers and teachers. So here we 
found rest. 

His family consisted of himself, his wife, and 
six children — two boys and four girls. Mrs. Jones 

231 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

was noted for her ability to prepare food well, 
and in a short while invited us to a delicious supper 
of fried chicken, fried ham, some very fine home- 
made sugar-cane sirup, and an abundance of milk 
and butter. At supper Deacon Jones told of the 
many preachers he had entertained and their fond- 
ness for chicken. 

After supper I spent some time in trying to 
find out the real condition of the people in this 
section. Mr. Jones told me how, for ten years, he 
had been trying to buy some land, and had been 
kept from it more than once, but that he was still 
hopeful of getting the right deeds for the land 
for which he had paid. He also told of many 
families who had recently moved into this com- 
munity. These newcomers had made a good start 
for the year and had promising crops, but they 
were compelled to mortgage their growing crops 
in order to get " advances " for the year. 

When asked of the schools, he said that there 
were more than five hundred children of school age 
in his township, but not more than two hundred of 
these had attended school the previous winter, and 
most of these for a period not longer than six weeks. 
He also said that the people were very indifferent 
as to the necessity of schoolhouses and churches, 

232 



UPLIFTING THE SUBMERGED 

Quite a few who cleared a little money the previ- 
ous j^ear had spent it all in buying whisky, in gamb- 
ling, in buying cheap jewelry, and for other use- 
less articles. After spending two hours in such 
talk I retired for the evening. Thus ended the 
first day of my search for first-hand information. 

We had a fine night's rest. Mr. Jones was up 
at early dawn to feed his horses and cattle, and 
before the sun was up he was out on his farm. 
Mrs. Jones and one of the daughters were left to 
prepare breakfast, and soon they, too, were ready 
to join the others on the farm. We took advan- 
tage of this early rising and were soon off on our 
journey. 

Instead of going farther northward, we turned 
our course westward for the town of Tilden, which 
is only eight miles west of Snow Hill. The road 
from Carlowville to Tilden is somewhat hilly, but a 
very pleasant one, and for miles the large oak- 
trees formed an almost perfect arch. 

On reaching Tilden we learned that there 
would be a union meeting of two of the churches 
that night. I decided that this would give me an 
opportunity to study the religious life of these peo- 
ple for myself. The members of churches No. 1 
and No. 2 assembled at their respective places at 

233 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

eight o'clock. The members of church No. 2 had a 
short praise-service, and formed a Une of procession 
to march to church No. 1. All the women of 
the congregation had their heads bound in pieces 
of white cloth, and they sang their peculiar songs 
as they marched. When the members of church 
No. 2 were within a few hundred yards of church 
No. 1, the singing then alternated, and finally, when 
the members of church No. 2 came to church No. 
1, they marched around this church three times 
before entering it. After entering, six sermons 
were preached to the two congregations by six dif- 
ferent ministers, and at least three of these could 
not read a word in the Bible. Each minister oc- 
cupied at least one hour. Their texts were as often 
taken from Webster's blue-back speller as from 
the Bible, and sometimes this would be held upside 
do^vn. It was about two o'clock in the morning 
when the services were concluded. 

Here, again, we found no schoolhouses, and the 
three months' school had been taught in one of 
the little churches. 

The next day we started for Camden, a dis- 
tance of sixteen miles. This section between Til- 
den and Camden is perhaps the most fertile sec- 
tion of land in the State of Alabama. Taking a 

234 



UPLIFTING THE SUBMERGED 

southwest course from Tilden, I crossed into Wil- 
cox County again, where I saw acres of corn and 
miles of cotton, all being cultivated by Negroes. 

The evening was far advanced when we reached 
Camden, but having been there before, we had 
no difficulty in securing lodging. Camden is the 
seat of Wilcox County, and has a population of 
about three thousand inhabitants. 

The most costly buildings of the town were 
the court-house and jail, and these occupied the 
most conspicuous places. 

Here great crowds of Negroes would gather 
on Saturdays to spend their earnings of the week 
for a fine breakfast or dinner on the following 
Sunday, or for useless trivialities. 

On Saturday evenings, on the roads leading to 
and from Camden, as from other towns, could be 
seen groups of Negroes gambling here and there, 
and buying and selling whisky. As the county 
had voted against licensing whisky-selling, this 
was a violation of the law, and often the com- 
mission merchant, a Negro, was imprisoned for the 
offense, while those who supplied him went free. 

In Camden I found one Negro schoolhouse ; 
this was a box-like cottage, 20 by 16 feet, and was 
supposed to seat more than one hundred students. 

235 



^ 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

This school, like those taught in the churches, was 
open only three months in the year. 

After a two days' stay in Camden I next 
visited Miller's Ferry ; this is on the Alabama River, 
twelve miles west of Camden. The road from 
Camden is one of the best roads in the State, and 
for miles and miles one could see nothing but cot- 
ton and corn. 

At Miller's Ferry a Negro schoolhouse of am- 
ple proportions had been built on Judge Hender- 
son's plantation. Here the school ran seven 
months in the year, and the colored people in the 
community were prosperous and showed a remark- 
able degree of intelligence. Their church was 
equally as attractive as their schoolhouse. 

Judge Henderson was for twelve years Pro- 
bate Judge of Wilcox County. He proved to be 
one of the best judges this county has ever had, 
and even unto this day he is admired by all, both 
white and black, rich and poor, for his honesty, in- 
tegrity, and high sense of justice. From Judge 
Henderson's place we traveled southward to Rock- 
west, a distance of more than fifteen miles. Dur- 
ing this journey hundreds of Negroes were seen at 
work in the corn- and cotton-fields. These people 
were almost wholly ignorant, as they had neither 

236 



UPLIFTING THE SUBMERGED 

schools nor teachers, and their ministers were al- 
most wholly illiterate. 

At Rock-west I found a very intelligent col- 
ored man who had attended school at Selma, Ala., 
for a few years. He owned his home and ran 
a small grocery. He told of the hardships with 
which he had to contend in building up his busi- 
ness, and of the almost hopeless condition of the 
Negroes about there. He said that they usually 
made money each year, but that they did not know 
how to keep it. The merchants would induce them 
to buy buggies, machines, clocks, etc., but would 
never encourage them to buy homes. We were 
very much pleased with the reception which Mr. 
Darrington gave us, and felt very much like put- 
ting into practise our State motto, " Here We 
Rest," at his home, but our objective point for the 
day was Fatama, sixteen miles away. 

On our journey that afternoon we saw hun- 
dreds of Negro one-room log cabins. Some of these 
were located in the dense swamps and some on the 
hills, while others were miles away from the pub- 
lic road. Most of these people had never seen 
a locomotive. We reached Fatama about seven 
o'clock that night, and here for the first time we 
were compelled to divide our crowd in order to 

237 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

get a night's lodging. Each of us had to spend 
the night in a one-room cabin. It was my privi- 
lege to spend the night with Uncle Jake, a jovial 
old man, a local celebrity. After telling him of 
our weary journey, he immediately made prepara- 
tion for me to retire. This was done by cutting 
off my bed from the remainder of the cabin by 
hanging up a sheet on a screen. While somewhat 
inconvenient, my rest that night was pleasant, and 
the next morning found me very much refreshed 
and ready for another day's journey. Our com- 
pany assembled at Uncle Jake's for breakfast, 
after which we started for Pineapple. 

We found the condition of the Negroes be- 
tween Fatama and Pineapple much the same as 
that of those we had seen the previous day. No 
schoolhouse was to be seen, but occasionally we 
would see a church at the cross-roads. We reached 
Pineapple late in the afternoon. 

From Pineapple we went to Greenville, and 
from Greenville to Fort Deposit, and from Fort 
Deposit we returned to Snow Hill, after having 
traveled a distance of 157 miles and visiting four 
counties. 

In three of these counties there is a colored 
population of 42,810 between the ages of five and 

238 



UPLIFTING THE SUBMERGED 

twenty years, and a white population of 7,608 of 
the same ages. In fact, the Negro school popula- 
tion of Wilcox and the seven adjoining counties 
is as follows: Wilcox, 11,623; Dallas, 18,292 
Lowndes, 13,044; Monroe, 5,615; Butler, 5,924 
Marengo, 12,362; Clark, 6,898; Perry, 10,723 
making a total of 85,499. Speaking of public 
schools in the sense that educators use the term, 
the colored people in this section have none. Of 
course, there are so-called public schools here and 
there, running from three to five months in the 
year and paying the teachers from $7.50 to $18 
per month; but the teachers are incompetent, and 
the schools are usually in the hands of those not 
too much interested in the cause of education. 
Many of these trustees do not visit the schools once 
in ten years, and they know absolutely nothing of 
the methods of discipline even used by the teachers. 
Our trip through this section revealed the fol- 
lowing facts : ( 1 ) That while many opportunities 
were denied our people, they abused many privi- 
leges; (2) that there was a colored population, in 
this section visited, of more than 200,000, and a 
school population of 85,499; (3) that the people 
were ignorant and superstitious ; (4) that the teach- 
ers and preachers for the most part were of the 

239 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

same condition; (5) that there were no public or 
private Hbraries and reading-rooms to which they 
had access; (6) that, strictly speaking, there were 
no public schools and only one private one. Now 
what can be expected of any people in such a 
condition? Can the blind lead the blind? They 
could not in the days of old, and it is not likely 
that they can now. 

After this trip through the " Black Belt " I was 
more convinced than ever before of the great need 
of an industrial school in the very midst of these 
people; a school that would correct the erroneous 
ideas the people held of education; a school that 
would put most stress upon the things which the 
people were most likely to have to do with through 
life; a school that would endeavor to make educa- 
tion practical rather than theoretical; a school that 
would train men and women to be good workers^ 
good leaders, good husbands, good wives, and 
finally train them to be fit citizens of the State, 
and proper subjects for the kingdom of God. 

With this idea the Snow Hill Normal and In- 
dustrial Institute was started ten years ago in an 
old, dilapidated, one-room log cabin with one 
teacher, three students, and no State appropria- 
tion, and without any church or society responsible 

240 



UPLIFTING THE SUBMERGED 

for one dollar of its expenses. Aside from this 
unfortunate state of affairs, the condition of the 
people was most miserable. This was due partly 
to poor crops and partly to bad management on 
their part. 

In many instances the tenants were not only 
unable to pay their debts, but were also unable to 
pay their rents. In a few cases the landlords had 
to provide, at their own expense, provisions for 
their tenants. This was simply another way of 
establishing soup -houses on the plantations. The 
idea of buying land was foreign to all of them, 
and there were not more than twenty acres of land 
owned by the colored people in this whole neigh- 
borhood. The churches and schools were practi- 
cally closed, while crime and immorality were ram- 
pant. The carrying of men and women to the 
chain-gang was a frequent occurrence. Aside 
from all this, these people believed that the end 
of education was to free their children from man- 
ual labor rather than prepare them for more and 
better work. They were very much opposed to 
industrial education. When the school was started, 
many of the parents came to the school and for- 
bade our " working " their children, stating as their 
objection that their children had been working all 

. 241 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

their lives, and they did not mean to send them 
to school to learn to work. Not only did they for- 
bid our having their children work, but many took 
their children out of school rather than have them 
do so. A good deal of this opposition was kept up 
by illiterate preachers and incompetent teachers, 
here and there, who had not had any particular 
training for their profession. In fact, ninety-eight 
per cent of them had attended no school. We con- 
tinued, however, to keep the " industrial plank " in 
our platform, and year after year some additional 
industry was added until we now have thirteen in- 
dustries in constant operation. Agriculture is the 
foremost and basic industry of the institution. 
We do this because we are in a farming section 
and ninety-five per cent of the people in this sec- 
tion depend upon some form of agriculture for a 
livelihood. How changed are the conditions now 
as regards our work ! From the little one-room log 
cabin, the school has grown so that it now owns 
100 acres of land, 14 buildings, counting large and 
small, with property valued at $37,000. From 
three students, it has grown so that we now have 
a school with more than four hundred students 
annually in attendance, representing more than a 
dozen Alabama counties and seven States. It has 

242 . 



UPLIFTING THE SUBMERGED 

also grown from one to twenty teachers and offi- 
cers. Including the class that graduated last term, 
thirty-seven have finished the course. All are liv- 
ing but one. No charge of criminal wrong-doing 
has been brought against even one of them. One 
of the young women is married to the head teacher, 
another to the superintendent of industries, and 
seven other graduates are employed in responsible 
positions by the school. One of these has taken a 
special course at Harvard University, three have 
taken additional courses at Tuskegee, one is in 
charge of the woman's department of a large 
school in Mississippi, two have founded schools 
of their own, one at Tilden, Ala., the other at 
Greensboro, Ala. All have remained in the coun- 
try among the masses whom they are helping to 
uplift, and most of them in Wilcox County, the 
county in which the school is located. Of the 
thirty-seven graduates, twenty-seven own their 
own homes. Aside from the graduates, about 
five hundred others have been under the influ- 
ence of the school for a longer or shorter period; 
many of these are making exceptionally good 
records. 

The growth on the part of the people has kept 
corresponding pace with the growth of the insti- 
ll 243 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

tution. The farmers, who ten years ago depended 
wholly on the landlords for food supplies, have 
grown to be independent, raising most of their 
own supplies. They are rapidly passing from the 
renters' class to the owners' class; they are pos- 
sessing themselves of the soil. This may be seen 
from the fact that ten years ago they owned in this 
county but twenty acres of land; to-day they own 
4,000 acres of land. Many of the most prosperous 
farmers have opened bank-accounts. The people 
no longer oppose industrial education; they now 
refuse to send their children to any school where 
they can not secure some industrial education. 

For our part we find it wholly impossible to ac- 
commodate all who come to us from time to time 
to take the trades' instruction. The churches here- 
about have been revived, new and better school- 
houses have been built, and the county school terms 
extended in many cases from two and three to five 
and six months; competent teachers and preachers, 
both intellectually and morally, have been em- 
ployed. Crime and immorality are being uprooted, 
and virtue and civic righteousness are being 
planted in their stead. The commercial and eco- 
nomic conditions have improved in every way, and 
there was never a more cordial relation existing be- 

244 



UPLIFTING THE SUBMERGED 

tween the races in this section than now. With 
these things true, the one-room log cabin can not 
survive, and is rapidly giving way to houses having 
three, four, and, in some places, six and seven 
rooms. 

After having been here at Snow Hill for a few 
years, we felt that while we were helping the chil- 
dren in the class-room, something should be done 
to help the parents; so we organized what we call 
the Snow Hill Negro Conference, on January 13, 
1897. This conference is modeled after the fa- 
mous Tuskegee Negro Conferences, and meets once 
a year. At this conference the farmers from this 
and the adjoining counties come together. There 
were 500 at our last conference. The school is 
almost wholly given up to farmers on Conference 
day. Here we listen to educational, religious, 
moral, and financial reports from many sections. 
Those who have succeeded, tell the others how they 
have done so, and those who have not succeeded tell 
how they are trying to succeed. From these annual 
meetings the farmers get new ideas, new informa- 
tion, and take fresh courage; they return to their 
farms more determined to succeed than ever before. 
When we commenced these meetings the reports 
were discouraging, and from many sections the 

245 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

condition of the race thereabout seemed hopeless. 
Many said that in the same section they could not 
buy land at any price. There were only twenty 
acres of land reported at the first conference. At 
the last one, reports showed that the people had 
purchased more than four thousand acres since the 
beginning of these conferences seven years ago. 
At our first meeting the reports showed that the 
one-room log-cabin home was the rule; at our last 
meeting it had become the exception. These con- 
ferences have tried all along to induce the people 
to raise more of their own food-supplies. We also 
waged a ceaseless war upon the one-room log-cabin 
home, which has resulted in almost annihilating 
them. This war shall never cease until there is not 
a one-room log cabin left in all this section. The 
one-room log cabin is a pestilent menace to decent 
living. 

Following the farmers' conference, we have 
the workers' conference during vacation. This 
conference is chiefly composed of teachers and 
preachers, and represents an idea got from 
Tuskegee. In this conference we get a clear idea 
of what the teachers and preachers are doing, the 
methods they are pursuing, and the results being 
achieved. The teachers are encouraged to make 

246 



UPLIFTING THE SUBMERGED 

education less theoretical and more practical; the 
preachers are urged to preach to our people less 
of the dying religion and more of the living re- 
ligion. While they are encouraged to build better 
schoolhouses and churches, they are also reminded 
of the fact that these are not the ends, but only 
the means to an end; that they are only of value 
in proportion as they can be used to build up a 
hopeful and noble life in the communities where 
they are located. However much the material side 
may be held up to them, they are told that in 
the last analysis the spiritual is always the end. 
The reports at our last Workers' Conference 
were most encouraging. Wherever the intelligent 
teacher and preacher have gone, the condition of 
the people has been improved. To my mind this 
demonstrates most clearly that the great need of 
our people is intelligent leaders, and it is this that 
we ask for; it is this for which Snow Hill is stri- 
ving. While much good is being accomplished 
through the Workers' Conference, the " Black Belt 
Improvement Society," which I have organized,^ 
deals more directly with the people in our immedi- 
ate neighborhood. The aim of this society is clearly 
set forth in its constitution, a part of which is as 
follows : 

247 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

1. This society shall be known as the Black Belt 
Improvement Society. Its object shall be the gen- 
eral uplift of the people of the Black Belt of 
Alabama; to make them better morally, mentally, 
spiritually, and financially. 

2. It shall be the object of the Black Belt Im- 
provement Society to, as far as possible, eliminate 
the credit system from our social fabric; to stimu- 
late in all members the desire to raise, as far as 
possible, all their food supplies at home, and pay 
cash for whatever may be purchased at the 
stores. 

3. To bring about a system of cooperation in 
the purchase of what supplies can not be raised at 
home wherever it can be done to advantage. 

4. To discuss topics of interest to the com- 
munities in which the various societies may be or- 
ganized, and topics relating to the general welfare 
of the race, and especially to farmers. 

5. To teach the people to practise the strictest 
economy, and especially to obtain and diffuse such 
information among farmers as shall lead to the 
improvement and diversification of crops, in order 
to create in farmers a desire for homes and better 
home conditions, and to stimulate a love for labor 
in both old and young. Each local organization 
may offer small prizes for the cleanest and best- 
kept house, the best pea-patch, and the best ear of 
corn, etc. 

6. To aid each other in sickness and in death; 

248 



UPLIFTING THE SUBMERGED 

for this purpose a fee of ten cents will be collected 
from each member every month and held sacred, 
to be used for no other purpose whatever. 

7. It shall be one of the great objects of this 
society to stimulate its members to acquire homes, 
and urge those who already possess homes to im- 
prove and beautify them. 

8. To urge our members to purchase only the 
things that are absolutely necessary. 

9. To exert our every eiFort to obliterate those 
evils which tend to destroy our character and our 
homes, such as intemperance, gambling, and so- 
cial impurity. 

10. To refrain from spending money and time 
foolishly or in unprofitable ways; to take an in- 
terest in the care of our highways, in the paying 
of our taxes, and the education of our children; 
to plant shade trees, repair our yard fences, and 
in general, as far as possible, bring our home 
life up to the highest standards of civilization. 

This society has several standing committees, 
as follows: on government, on education, on busi- 
ness, on housekeeping, on labor, and on farming. 
The chairman of these respective committees holds 
monthly meetings in the various communities, at 
which time various topics pertaining to the welfare 
and uplift of the people are discussed. As a result 

249 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

of these meetings the people return to their homes 
with new inspiration. These meetings are doing 
good in the communities where they are being held, 
and our sincere hope is that such meetings may- 
be extended. The ills that most retard the Negroes 
of the rural South are sought to be reached by the 
school and by the several organizations which have 
been organized by it. These articles of the simple 
constitution go to the very bottom of the con- 
ditions. 

If one would again take the trip which I made 
in the summer of 1893, he would find that two- 
thirds of the land lying between Snow Hill and 
Carlowville, a distance of seven miles, is now owned 
and controlled entirely by Negroes. In Carlow- 
ville, instead of the old one-room-cabin church, 
there is a beautiful church with glass windows. An 
acre of land has been bought, and a neat and com- 
fortable schoolhouse with glass windows has been 
erected, and a graduate of my school is the teacher. 
Many families in that section are now owning 
homes. A great revolution is also taking place in 
Tilden. John Thomas, one of our graduates. Class 
of '01, has gone into this place, induced the people 
to buy thirty acres of land, on which they have 
erected a splendid building having two rooms, and 

250 



UPLIFTING THE SUBMERGED 

the school is being conducted seven months in the 
year. Many farmers in this section are now own- 
ing homes, some of them owning as much as 400 
acres of land. This improvement is steadily going 
on in all sections where the influence of our school 
has reached. 

Thus it will be seen that the work in the class- 
room is only a small part of what we are trying 
to do for the uplift of the Negro people in the 
Black Belt. 

In order that this good work may be pushed 
more rapidly, it is necessary that we give some 
time to this particular movement. This can only 
be done by our having here a strong and healthy 
institution with an endowment sufficiently large to 
relieve us of our great financial burden. An 
adequate endowment would meet this need. While 
we are anxious to raise an endowment fund, our 
burden could be partially relieved by the school 
securing possession of a large plantation in the 
neighborhood which is now, and has been for three 
years, offered to us. This plantation contains be- 
tween three thousand and four thousand acres of 
land, and can be bought for $30,000, and would 
afford us unbounded opportunity for the exten- 
sion of the agricultural features of our work, which 

251 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

would enable us to raise more, if not all, of our 
food supplies. 

I have tried as simply as possible in this article 
to state the real condition of the people in the 
Black Belt section of this State, and to tell how 
we are trying to cope with these conditions. Our 
constant feeling is that there is so much to be done, 
and that so little has been accomplished. 

In closing: The inspiration derived at Tuske- 
gee; the instruction given in shop, and field, and 
class-room; the guiding hand of its illustrious 
Principal — all of these have had their impress upon 
me and have urged me to dedicate myself unre- 
servedly to these people, among whom I was 
reared, among whom I shall continue to labor, 
among whom I shall at the last be buried. 



252 



XI 

A DAIRYMAN'S STORY 

By Lewis A. Smith 

In any attempt to write a story of my life 
and work, the " work " feature must predominate. 

I was born March 27, 1877, at Louisville, Ky. 
My father and mother were slaves of old Georgia 
stock. My father, after freedom, was for a time 
jDermitted to attend Howard University, Wash- 
ington, D. C. He was a candy-maker. My mother 
attended Atlanta University. 

In 1878 my parents left Atlanta, where my 
two brothers were born, and located in Louisville. 
Leaving Louisville in 1881, the family moved to 
Chicago, 111., where I lived until I entered Tuske- 
gee Institute, of which my mother and I had heard 
much. 

After reaching Chicago, my parents established 
a confectionery store. My earlier days were mostly 
spent behind the counter in the store, not as a clerk 
helping to earn profits, but in an endeavor to make 

253 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

profits disappear. I was much in love with the 
nice things we had for sale. 

An unfortunate family " incident " in 1882 
resulted in placing my two brothers and me in 
the custody of my mother. Our childhood pleas- 
ures were marred by this affair. Although I was 
too young to fully understand the situation, I re- 
ahzed that I lacked the pleasures that other chil- 
dren had; I realized the absence of that paternal 
care and affection that other children enjoyed — 
the home was not complete. I can not recall my 
childhood with any special pleasure. 

I entered the public schools of Chicago when 
I was seven years of age. I made a very good 
record in my studies, attested by the fact that I 
made two grades the first year, and one grade 
with excellent marks each succeeding year there- 
after. My deportment was not exemplary. I 
can remember occasions when I was severely repri- 
manded for being absent from school without an 
excuse, having gone fishing, or bathing in Lake 
Michigan, or skating in the parks in winter. 

That was before the compulsory school law 
went into effect, or at least before it affected me. 
I was not, however, a bad boy. I was neither 
rough nor tough; I had no bad habits other than 

254 



A DAIRYMAN'S STORY 

smoking corn-silk cigarettes, iuul 1 soon stopped 
that as tlie novelty of the thing wore off. My 
young mind and hody required recreation. Unlike 
the children of the South, who had three months of 
school and nine months of play or work in the fields, 
I had nine months of school and three months of 
j)lay. I thought the ratio was in the wrong propor- 
tion. 15ut as I grew older 1 hecame more settled 
and more interested in my studies. 

Although during the greater portion of my 
school life in Chicago I was the sole Negro pupil 
in my classes, yet I do not rememher a single oc- 
casion when prejudice was leveled at me hy teacher 
or schoolmate. 

Karly, after throwing off my wildness, I re- 
alized the need and the advantage of possessing an 
education, and, having such excellent facilities at 
hand, determined to heconie educated, and dili- 
gently pursued that ohject. Just as I was ahout 
to enter the eighth grade, however, I had to give 
up going to school, and go to work. 

I secured employment with a wood-engraving 
firm as general office- and errand-hoy. My wages 
were $2.50 a week. Ahout fifty cents of this sum I 
spent each week for car-fare and incidentals. As I 
lived three miles from my work it would have heen 

255 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

necessary for me to spend my whole allowance for 
car-fare had I not stolen rides on railroad trains. I 
often wonder now how I could have jumped on and 
off swift-moving trains, day after day, without re- 
ceiving some serious injury. Surely Providence 
must have protected me in my endeavor to save my 
scanty earnings. My clothing did not cost much, 
as I was the " happy " recipient of the cast-oif 
clothes of the older members of the family. 

My work was agreeable and my employer was 
generously sympathetic. Realizing that wood- 
engraving and illustrating would offer remu- 
nerative employment, I sought to learn the trade, 
but was told that I would have to serve an ap- 
prenticeship of six months without pay; that pre- 
cluded all hope of learning that trade. 

Manhood approached before I was prepared 
to do anything. I did not earn much in my youth, 
and could not expect to earn much in manhood 
without preparation. I then resolved to enter 
school again, but the expense of a thorough course 
was an apparently insurmountable obstacle. I had 
been unable to save much from my meager allow- 
ance. I had heard of the Tuskegee Institute and 
of the opportunities there offered to poor young 
men and women. I decided to enter that school. 

256 



A DAIRYMAN'S STORY 

A friend helped me to purchase an excursion ticket 
to Atlanta, Ga., where was being held the Cotton- 
States and International Exposition. I left Chi- 
cago in November, and after two days spent in 
Atlanta with relatives and in seeing the sights, 
I exchanged my return coupon for a ticket to 
Tuskegee. 

I arrived at Chehaw, the station where passen- 
gers transfer for Tuskegee, and taking passage 
in a wagonette, a crude substitute for our modern 
means of interurban transit — the little train was 
not running on that day — we drove through a pic- 
turesque country abounding in woods, vales, and 
cultivated fields, occasionally coming across land- 
marks of antebellum days. Here one was really 
in communion with Nature, so different it was 
from the massive specimens of architecture, the 
clatter of horses on the cobblestone pavement, the 
rattle of elevated trains, and the activity of com- 
mercial life of the Western metropolis from which 
I had come. As we reached high elevations 
glimpses of the institution came into view. 

Tuskegee was a surprise to me ; it surpassed my 
fondest hope. The majestic buildings, the monu- 
ments to the fidelity and building skill of past 
classes, the well-designed landscape architecture, 

257 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

made me feel that I had at last found the place 
where I could be prepared for real life. I re- 
ceived a cordial welcome from the teachers; also 
from the students, especially from those connected 
with the religious and literary organizations, of 
which there are quite a number. 

When asked the industry I wished to learn, I 
chose that of agriculture. Like hundreds of boys 
confined to city environment, I had a craving for 
Nature, a fondness for live stock, and for all that 
I should come in contact with while taking that 
course. I worked during the daytime the first 
year and attended school at night, thereby acquir- 
ing experience and accumulating a credit to apply 
to my board when I should enter the day-school. 
Soon after entering the agricultural department 
I had made such progress that I was placed in charge 
of the hotbeds and grew vegetables all winter. 
It was a marvelous accomplislmient with me, for 
I could not have grown them even in the summer 
before I entered that department. The care of 
the various seeds used on the farm was also in my 
charge. 

This privilege afforded me opportunities for 
seed-testing and for observing plant development ; it 
was all very instructive. While attending the aca- 

258 



A DAIRYMAN'S STORY 

demic classes at night, the daytime was devoted 
entirely to study in the various divisions of the 
agricultural department. 

At the expiration of my first year as a night- 
school student, I entered day-school, devoting 
about equal time to academic and agricultural 
classes, and a small portion of the time to the 
study of music, being a member of the Institute 
brass band, and in my last year a member of the 
orchestra. 

During my second summer's vacation I went 
into the southern part of Montgomery County, 
Ala., in search of a school to teach. There was no 
schoolhouse, no school fund, nor any appropriation 
available except for a three months' term during 
the winter. After further canvass I was per- 
mitted to open a school in the little church at 
Strata, Ala. The large attendance of pupils and 
their eagerness to learn won my sympathy and I 
would gladly have planted a sprig of Tuskegee 
there had I not had strong inclinations for a com- 
mercial life. I conducted a class in agriculture 
for the benefit of the farmers. I believe it was 
helpful to them. My spare time was spent in going 
through the country noting the waste of the land 
and the lack of enterprise among the owners and 
18 259 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

tenants, due in large measure, I am sure, to the 
mortgage system and the deep ignorance of the 
people. Most of the evenings I spent listening 
to the terrible stories of slavery days from the lips 
of those who had passed through them. 

In the midst of this service I received a tele- 
gram announcing the death of my mother. I was 
too far from home to return in time to see the 
last of her, even if I had had the means to do so. 
I was in grief; I had sustained a great loss; she 
was my all, my mother. 

I returned to Tuskegee and graduated with 
the Class of '98. 

I am grateful to Tuskegee Institute, to the 
genius of Mr. Washington, for the opportunities I 
had to acquire an education ; to the members of the 
Faculty for their assistance, and to my father, who 
gave me much of material aid and encouragement. 

After graduating, I spent two months at 
special work in the school dairy; then, with the 
assistance of my father, I secured a position with 
the Forest City Creamery Company of Rockford, 
111. Entering this company's employ about the 
15th of August, 1898, I have been employed ever 
since at the same place. 

The Forest City Creamery is one of the largest 
260 



A DAIRYMAN'S STORY 

butter-making concerns in the United States, aver- 
aging twenty thousand pounds of butter per day. 
We make two grades of butter, known as process, 
or renovated, and creamery butter. There are em- 
ployed at this plant about seventy-five persons. 

My work consists in what is known to the trade 
as " starter-making " and preparing the flavor for 
the butter. The work is bacteriological, propa- 
gating a species of bacteria which produces the 
pleasant aroma and flavor of good butter. It 
requires not only an understanding of bacteriology, 
but skilled workmanship and earnest attention to 
details. The secret processes of this company are 
known to a close group only, of which I am one. 
My work here has been entirely successful and 
satisfactory to my employers, if I may judge from 
a highly complimentary interview with one of the 
officers of the company regarding my work, pub- 
lished in one of the leading daily newspapers of 
Rock ford, and the fact that I am now receiving 
double my initial wages. 

I have a record not surpassed by any other 
employee of this company. Between June 24, 
1901, following a wedding-trip to Tuskegee, and 
August 15, 1904, when we visited the St. Louis 
Exposition, I have worked each day at the Cream- 

261 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

ery, including Sundays and holidays, my work re- 
quiring that I do so. These 1,155 consecutive days 
of labor were made possible by a total abstinence 
from all intoxicating liquors and tobacco. My suc- 
cess here can be credited to the efficient training I 
received at Tuskegee. 

"It is not well for man to live alone." Fol- 
lowing this injunction I have taken unto myself 
a helpmeet, who is all that the word implies, loving, 
economical, and well trained in domestic arts. 
Shortly after our marriage we began paying for 
a home of eleven rooms located in a good resi- 
dence portion of the city. The lower part of the 
house, containing six rooms, we occupy, and have 
comfortably furnished; the up-stairs portion, con- 
taining five rooms, we rent to a family of white 
people; the rent we receive equals the interest on 
the investment. 

We have one child, a little girl two years old, 
who furnishes sunshine to an already happy home. 

Our house is surrounded by a lawn with shade- 
and fruit-trees, and many flower-beds. The back 
yard contains a garden with berry plants, a well- 
built and well-arranged poultry-house, a yard con- 
taining a flock of pure-bred fowls, the nucleus 
of a future enterprise, and a barn with a good 

262 



A DAIRYMAN'S STORY 

horse, a buggy, etc., for our pleasure and con- 
venience. 

My ambition when leaving school was first to 
endeavor to become independent financially, so that 
I might enjoy my old age; then, if it were possible, 
to gain that independence early in life by economy, 
by earning for myself what I earn for my em- 
ployer; to try to make it possible for the Negro 
farmer to sell his produce to the Negro gin, the 
Negro cotton-mill, or creamery, as the case might 
be ; my idea being, by this community of interest, to 
help the Negro people about me to help themselves 
and their fellows. I beheve, in the words of the 
motto of the Class of '98 — my class — that " we 
rise upon the structure we ourselves have builded." 
I have tried to live with this thought ever be- 
fore me. 



263 



XII 
THE STORY OF A WHEELWRIGHT 

By Edward Lomax 

I WAS born in the small town of Demopolis, in 
the western part of the State of Alabama, January 
17, 1877. My uncle was a wheelwright, and I, at 
an early age, was led to desire to become an ar- 
tisan such as my uncle was. I interceded with him 
and became the " handy boy " around the shop in 
which he worked, and picked up much useful in- 
formation; but there was nothing progressive or 
directly helpful in the work I was permitted to do. 
I also did some little work in blacksmithing while 
in the shop. 

What to me was a fortunate circumstance was 
the meeting with a chance acquaintance who was 
returning from Tuskegee Institute for his vaca- 
tion. This young man told me most glowing 
stories of the Tuskegee Institute. He was so en- 
thusiastic that he imparted much of his enthusiasm 
to me. He himself was taking instruction in the 
wheelwrighting division, and could give at first- 
hand the information I most desired. The whole 

264 



THE STORY OF A WHEELWRIGHT 

Tuskegee plan was outlined to me: how I could 
learn my trade, and at the same time get book > 
instruction; how I could earn by labor enough to 
carry me through school while securing to myself 
the advantages mentioned. I had had to learn 
by seeing others do, and it was now pointed out to 
me how I could " learn by doing," and that was 
the thing I wanted. I had been used to being 
kept from the use of tools and everything that 
would really help me to learn wheel wrighting ; the 
only chances I ever had being to " knock about " 
the shop, occasionally having some worthless job, 
with cast-off tools to work with, entrusted to me. 
The upshot of it was that I decided to go to 
Tuskegee, and carefully saved as much of my wages 
of $2.50 per week as I possibly could, so as to pur- 
chase clothing, books, and those incidentals insisted 
upon by the school that each student must have. I 
wrote to the school, and received a letter from Prin- 
cipal Washington admitting me should I find my- 
self able to meet the requirements stated as follows : 

No person will be admitted to the school as 
a student who can not pass the examination for 
the C Preparatory class. To enter this class one 
must be able to read, write, and understand ad- 
dition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. 

265 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

Applicants for admission must be of good moral 
character and must bring at least two letters of 
recommendation as to their moral character from 
reliable persons of their communities. 

The Day -School. — The Day- School is intended 
for those who are able to pay all or the greater 
part of their expenses in cash. Students attend- 
ing the Day- School are required to work one day 
in each week and every other Saturday. 

They must also be fourteen years of age, of 
good physique, and able to pass the examination 
for the C Preparatory class, as stated above. 

The Night-School. — The requirements for en- 
tering the Night-School are the same as for enter- 
ing the Day-School, with the additional requisites: 
Apphcants must be fully sixteen years of age in- 
stead of fourteen, and physically able to perform 
an adult's labor. Cripples are under no circum- 
stances admitted to this department. 

The Night-School is designed for young men 
and women who earnestly desire to educate them- 
selves, but who are too poor to pay even the small 
charge made in the Day-School. Students will 
not be admitted to the Night-School who are 
known to be able to enter the Day-School; and 
when a student has fraudulently gained admission, 
upon discovery of the deception, must either enter 
the Day-School or leave the institution. 

Trades are assigned as nearly as possible in 
accordance with the students' desires. In assign- 

266 



THE STORY OF A WHEELWRIGHT 

ing young men and women to a trade, their mental 
ability and intelligence to grasp it, and physical 
ability to perform the duties required, are all care- 
fully considered. At the beginning of the school 
year it often happens that certain of the industries 
are quickly filled; and when this happens, appli- 
cants for this particular industry are assigned to 
some other division until a vacancy occurs. 

The school authorities also sent me a card noti- 
fying me as to the school's requirements in the way 
of discipline. These seemed to me to be rather 
overexacting, but I resolved to try to live up to 
them if I should be admitted. Among these were 
the following: 

The rules governing the school are aimed to 
be those which best promote the welfare and happi- 
ness of all. 

Each student is required to have a Bible. 

Regular habits of rest and recreation are re- 
quired. 

No student is allowed to leave the grounds 
without permission. 

Male students when permitted to leave the 
grounds must wear the regulation cap. 

No young woman is permitted to leave the 
grounds of the institution unless accompanied by 
a teacher. 

The Institute has adequate facilities for ba- 
267 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

thing, and all students are required to bathe at 
stated periods. Bath-houses for young men and 
young women, with swimming-pools and shower- 
bath appointments, afford every facility in this re- 
gard. 

The use of intoxicating drinks and the use of 
tobacco are strictly forbidden. 

Dice-playing and card-playing are strictly pro- 
hibited. 

Students are liable to be dropped for inability 
to master their studies, irregularity of attendance, 
or for failure to comply with the regulations of 
the school after due notice. 

The demeriting system has been adopted by 
the school as the principal method of discipline 
for misconduct: 33 J demerit marks constitute a 
" warning," and upon receiving three warnings 
a student is liable to suspension or expulsion, ac- 
cording as the Executive Council may determine. 

All non-resident students are expected to board 
on the school-grounds, unless there is some good 
reason for a contrary arrangement. 

Students are not registered for a shorter period 
than one month; those who leave before the end 
of a month are charged for a full month's board. 

When students desire to leave the school they 
are required to have parents or guardian write di- 
rectly to the Principal for permission to do so. 

The Dean of the Woman's Department meets 
all the young women of the school each Friday 

268 



THE STORY OF A WHEELWRIGHT 

afternoon, and the Commandant all of the young 
men every Saturday evening, at which times talks, 
both instructive and corrective, are given. No stu- 
dent is excused from these meetings except by 
special permission. 

Students who sign a contract to work a speci- 
fied time at some trade or other work must be re- 
leased from their contract before application for 
an excuse from school will be considered. Any 
student leaving without a written excuse will not 
be allowed to return, and students under contract 
will not only be dismissed, but will forfeit what- 
ever cash there may be to their credit in the school 
treasury. Students must settle their accounts be- 
fore leaving. 

Remittances in payment of bills should be made 
to the Principal or Treasurer (and not to the stu- 
dent) by post-office money-order, registered let- 
ter, or check. 

Students are not allowed to retain firearms in 
their possession. The Commandant of Cadets will 
retain and give receipts for any brought. 

Low or profane language will subject students 
to severe discipline. Students are liable to repri- 
mand, confinement, or other punishment. 

Letter-writing is subject to regulation, and all 
mail- and express-packages are inspected and con- 
tents noted. Students are urged to write their par- 
ents at least once a week. 

Wardrobes and rooms of students are subject 
269 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

to inspection and regulation by proper officers at 
all times, and regular and thorough inspection of 
same are made from time to time. 

I was admitted in due course of time. 

I reached Tuskegee on the 5th of September, 
1896, and after purchasing books, etc., my " cash 
assets," $12, were about exhausted. I could not en- 
ter as a day-school student, as I did not have the 
money to do so. In the night-school I found a 
chance which I gladly embraced. As I had desired, 
I was assigned to the wheelwright division for two 
years, signing a formal contract to that effect. I 
spent the whole of each day in the shop, attended in- 
dustrial or theory classes two afternoons in each 
week, besides taking mechanical drawing (as all 
trades students are required to do), and attended 
evening classes. 

I applied myself as earnestly as I possibly 
could, and lost no time in getting right down to 
business. So well had I done that, that when a 
call reached the school during the spring of 1897 
for a competent blacksmith, I was sent to do the 
work. I was excused from school on April 15th 
of that year and went to Shorter's, Ala., a set- 
tlement about eighteen miles from Tuskegee. I 
remained there until October. 

270 




o 

< 

H 

Q 

H 
c/2 



THE STORY OF A WHEELWRIGHT 

In a way, I regarded that period somewhat as 
a vacation period, as I did not lose much time 
from my classes. The surroundings were pleasant 
and profitable, and I had a chance to enter into 
the life of the people and help them a great deal. 
While there I earned enough money to send for 
my brother and enter him in Tuskegee, that he 
might have the same chance I was enjoying to 
get an education. I wanted my brother to enter 
the blacksmith-shop, as I saw visions of a black- 
smithing and wheelwrighting business to be owned 
and conducted by Lomax Brothers some time in 
the future. I also provided clothing out of what 
I had earned for both my brother and myself. 

At close of the school term in 1898 I was 
able to secure employment at Uniontown, Ala., 
with Messrs. J. L. Dykes and Company, doing a 
general wheelwrighting and blacksmithing busi- 
ness — the largest business of its kind in the town. 
I remained at Uniontown, working for the firm 
until October, when I again returned to Tuskegee. 
The sum per day I received was a most flattering 
tribute to Tuskegee's ability to take a stiff country 
lad like myself, and turn him, in a few months, into 
a workman commanding decent wages. 

What this means to the masses of the students 
271 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

who go to Tuskegee the general pubUc can have no 
idea. It is a great thing for a boy who never 
earned more than the merest pittance a day to go 
to a school where he can secure an education by 
working for it, and at the same time be fitted 
to earn wages, as many of them do, three and 
even five times as high as before going there. 
This accounts, in a large measure I am sure, for 
the fact that so large a number refuse to remain 
and go through the full courses of academic 
study. 

Many of them, finding themselves able in a 
few months to earn sums far beyond any previous 
hope, decide to take advantage at once of this in- 
creased earning capacity; but since the work is so 
well graded, no boy can get his trade without get- 
ting, at the same time, academic instruction, and in- 
struction in those character- forming things all about 
the student at Tuskegee. 

I began the new term with $50, which sum was 
to my credit in the school treasury, having been 
earned by my labor. 

During the summer of 1899 I was again 
offered work at Uniontown by Messrs. J. L. 
Dykes and Company. I remained with them 
only two months, however. Afterward I worked at 

272 



THE STORY OF A WHEELWRIGHT 

the McKinley Brothers' Wagon Factory at De- 
mopolis, Ala. ; as a journeyman workman at Tuske- 
gee, in the Institute's Wheelwrighting Shop, and 
with the Nack Carriage Company at Mobile, Ala., 
the largest shop of its kind in that city and one of 
the largest in the whole South, a firm doing strictly 
high-grade work. In all of these positions I have 
every reason to believe that I gave full and com- 
plete satisfaction. While with the last-named 
company I won the personal favor and interest 
of the manager and continued to study. He 
recommended that I add to my Tuskegee train- 
ing by taking the correspondence course of the 
Technical School for Carriage Draftsmen and 
Mechanics, New York. I remained with this firm 
until I was offered a position by Mr. R. R. Tay- 
lor, the present director of mechanical industries 
of the Tuskegee Institute, three years ago. I 
was greatly pleased and flattered when I was 
called to take charge of the division in which I 
had received my own instruction. Since being 
at Tuskegee I have continued to study, and 
am satisfied that I have weU used my oppor- 
tunities. 

This division over which I preside is located on 
the first floor of the Trades Building. It is well 

273 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

fitted for work in general wheelwrighting and re- 
pairing. 

Included in the equipment are ten woodwork- 
ers' benches 32 inches high, 42 inches wide, and 8 
feet long. Each bench is divided into two parts, 
making it possible for two persons to work at the 
same bench without interference. The benches have 
three drawers and one closet on each side, in which 
tools used by the students are kept. 

Each pupil is provided with the following 
tools: One coach-maker's vise, one 26-inch No. 6 
cross-cut saw, one 12 -inch back saw, one set of 
planes, one set of chisels, one set of auger-bits, 
one set of gimlet-bits, one ratchet-brace, one 
coach-maker's drawing-knife, one spoke-shave, one 
thumb-gauge, one try-square, one bevel, one ham- 
mer, and one mallet. Other tools are kept in re- 
serve by the instructor and are used only when 
needed. 

The division is constantly building new work, 
such as wagons, drays, horse- and hand-carts, 
wheelbarrows, buggies, and road-carts. The work 
of repairing vehicles and farm implements for the 
school, and a large amount of repairing for the 
locality, is done by my students. The course is 
as follows: 

274 



THE STORY OF A WHEELWRIGHT 

The First Year, — Care of shop, names and 
care of tools, general measurements; elementary 
work with saw, plane, drawing-knife, chisel, and 
spoke-shave; practise in the making and applica- 
tion of joints, i. e., splices, mortises, tenons, and 
miters; kinds of wood used and how to select; 
practise-work on parts of wagons and bodies; In- 
dustrial Classes and Mechanical Drawing during 
the year. 

The Second Year. — Pattern-making, working 
by patterns, practise-work on parts of wagons con- 
tinued; making wheelbarrows and hand-carts, re- 
pairing wagons; practise in wheel-building; con- 
struction of wagons, carts, and drays; practise on 
parts of buggies and wagons; industrial classes 
and Mechanical Drawing during the year. 

The Third Year. — Building wheels; general re- 
pairs on buggies and wagons continued; practise- 
work on parts of buggies, phaetons, farm- and 
business-wagons; shop economics, estimates, bills 
of material; industrial classes and Mechanical 
Drawing during the year. 

The student in wheelwrighting receives instruc- 
tion in wood-turning ; the course is the same as that 
given to students in carpentry. 

I was married late last summer, 1904, and am 
now living at Tuskegee as a member of the Faculty 
of the school I entered as a raw recruit. 

19 275 



XIII 

THE STORY OF A BLACKSMITH 

By Jubie B. Bragg 

Both my mother and father were compelled 
to work in the field as farmers. They had four 
children, all now living, of whom I am the eldest. 
I was born in Twiggs County, Ga., February 17, 
1876, but in 1881 the family moved to Macon, Ga., 
where they lived until 1886. The crudest possible 
blow befell us when both mother and father died 
in April of that year, within ten days of each other. 

My parents were intelligent, and though they 
had had no opportunities for securing an educa- 
tion, yet they were able to teach their children the 
alphabet and how to spell a few simple words. 
My first lessons were in Webster's blue-back 
speller, so when I started to school at six years of 
age I was not the dullest boy beginning at the same 
place, because of the instruction I had received. I 
first went to a Miss Mary Tom, who taught in St. 
Paul's Church in East Macon. I went there but 
one school session. I was next sent to a Miss Carr, 

276 



THE STORY OF A BLACKSMITH 

who taught in the basement of the Presbyterian 
church on Washington Avenue, West Macon. 
To her, also, I only went one term. I was next 
started in Lewis' High School, now known as Bal- 
lard's Normal School, but was soon compelled 
to cease going there because of the death of both 
parents, as already mentioned, in April of that 
same term. 

I was now but ten years of age. My aunt took 
charge of me and of the other children. I was im- 
mediately " hired out " to a family named Horton, 
for my victuals and clothing. I worked for this 
family about six months, all of whom were kind 
to me, especially Mr. Horton, Jr., who at this time 
had charge of an ice-house. Each day I carried 
his meals to him and could confidently count upon 
receiving from him a nickel ( five cents ) , which was 
forthwith invested in candy as I returned. It 
was a real pleasure to meet and make myself 
known to Mr. Horton, Jr., the young man who 
had been so kind to me in Birmingham, Ala., in 
1901, after my graduation from Tuskegee. He 
was apparently glad to see me, and especially to 
learn that I had been attending the Tuskegee In- 
stitute. After leaving the Horton family I went 
to work in a grocery store, that of a Mrs. Machold, 

277 



I 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

from whom I received $4 a month for my services. 
I only remained with her a short while. 

The work I liked best of all, however, was that 
with the shoe firm of Bearden and Brantley. I 
had my Sundays, and was off from work at six 
o'clock each week-day — a great change from my 
former employment. 

When I was twelve years of age I went to visit 
an uncle who lived in Baldwin County, Ga. I had 
gone to remain two weeks; as a matter of fact I 
was with him three years. I worked on the farm 
every day while with him, and went to school about 
two months each year. In this short time I was 
only able to review the lessons I had already had. 
After returning to Macon, a number of young 
men who had been to Tuskegee persuaded me to 
consider going there to school. The most strenu- 
ous opposition came from my own relatives. 
After many conversations about the matter I had 
finally to go against their will. They honestly felt 
that such reading and writing as I could do was 
quite enough education for me, or for any other 
Negro boy. 

I reached the school, after being properly ad- 
mitted, on the 11th of September, 1893, and 
registered as a student in the night-school, as I 

278 



THE STORY OF A BLACKSMITH 

had no money, and could pay in cash for no part 
of my expenses. I was assigned, after examina- 
tion, to the A Preparatory class. I was assigned 
work at the barns, fed cows, milked, and rendered 
such other service as was required by the instructor. 
Soon after reaching Tuskegee and after I had 
begun " working out " my expenses, I learned that 
the officers of the school were contemplating a new 
scheme whereby all of the students in the night- 
school would work one-half of each day, go to 
school one-half of each day, and pay $4 a month 
in cash into the school treasury. Mrs. Washing- 
ton, the " guardian angel " of the student body 
at Tuskegee called me and several other students 
into conference and asked us to frankly state how 
the new schedule would affect us, what we thought 
of the plan, how much money we were able to 
pay, etc. Out of the whole number only four 
declared they were able to pay the $4 a month; 
the larger number, like myself, were utterly un- 
able to pay anything in cash, being dependent 
absolutely upon our ability to cover our expenses 
by work in some of the industrial divisions. It 
was finally decided to forego this contemplated 
arrangement, and I, and the majority of others 
situated like myself, were made very happy. My 

279 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

whole future hinged on this decision, as I should 
have been compelled to leave school if it had been 
put in operation. I remained at the school dur- 
ing the summer of 1894, the school very kindly 
arranging each summer to keep a large number 
of students and providing work for them. It 
was to me an advantage to remain. I had no 
money for railroad fare, and I was sure of se- 
curing a trade, wheelwrighting, at the beginning 
of the next term. I had desired to go into the 
blacksmith-shop, but it was so crowded that there 
was no reasonable assurance that I should be able 
to secure entrance thereto. 

At the beginning of the fall term, 1894, I en- 
tered the wheelwright-shop, at the same time, of 
course, carrying my academic work; I had been 
successively each year promoted to the next higher 
class. I not only worked all of that school year 
in the wheelwrighting-shop, but remained the sum- 
mer of 1895. 

Shortly after the new school year began, my 
instructor, Mr. M. T. Driver, was selected to take 
charge of the school's elaborate exhibit at the Cot- 
ton States and International Exposition, Atlanta, 
Ga., at the opening of which Principal Washing- 
ton had spoken so effectively and powerfully for 

280 



THE STORY OF A BLACKSMITH 

the Negro people of the country. I had made 
such substantial progress that Mr. J. H. Wash- 
ington, then serving as director of mechanical in- 
dustries, notified me that I had been selected to 
manage the shop during Mr. Driver's six months' 
absence. 

I was not very much inclined to take the re- 
sponsibility, but at Tuskegee polite notification of 
selection to do a thing is a command. I accepted 
the work and did my very best. There were about 
twenty young men in the shop when I took charge, 
some older, some younger than I, but most of 
whom had been there longer than I had. I had 
no serious complaints as to the quality of work 
turned out by me during the instructor's absence. 

I now had to my credit more than enough 
money to carry me through the remaining two 
years. The next year I entered the day-school. I 
had become in most respects a new person. I had 
gone to Tuskegee country-bred, raw, ignorant. 
The school's transforming influence I was able to 
note in my carriage, and, of course, in my conversa- 
tion, in my care for neatness and order, and in the 
ideals I was forming and trying to live up to. 
During the summer I returned home for the first 
time. I worked at my trade during the vacation 

281 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

and earned enough money to buy clothing and 
other necessaries. I did not return to school until 
December 28, 1897, as I needed the money I was 
earning at my trade. I had never earned in money 
more than the small amounts referred to in the 
first part of this paper, and so was delighted with 
my earning capacity. 

I then sought work in the blacksmithing-shop, 
the shop I had first desired to enter, so that I might 
become a first-class blacksmith in addition to hav- 
ing a working knowledge of wheelwrighting. Af- 
ter completing the school term I went to Mont- 
gomery, Ala., and worked as a wheelwright and 
blacksmith. This outside experience was most 
helpful to me. My last school year was that of 
1899-1900. I was very happy to receive, along 
with my academic diploma, a certificate also from 
the blacksmithing division. I was now fitted to 
begin my life in the great outside world. 

My first work was as instructor in blacksmith- 
ing and wheelwrighting in the Hungerford In- 
dustrial School at Eatonville, Fla. I then secured 
work at my trades in Birmingham until August, 
1901, when three of us who had been classmates 
at Tuskegee decided to form a partnership and 
conduct on a large scale a general blacksmithing 

282 



THE STORY OF A BLACKSMITH 

and wheelwrighting business. I was deputed to 
select the place where we should locate. After 
interviewing a number of persons, Anniston, Ala., 
was suggested, and I decided to go there to per- 
sonally investigate conditions. After getting 
there and going about the town, I agreed that 
at Anniston we should find a place that would 
properly support our business. There was no 
place vacant that we could rent, so after some 
further consideration we decided to purchase a 
place. This we were fortunate enough to do, and 
came into possession of a building for our shop, 
50 by 60 feet. We met all obligations after open- 
ing the shop and secured the most flattering sup- 
port. Our work met the most exacting require- 
ments, and I was very much disinclined to accept 
an offer which reached me from Mr. Nathan B. 
Young, who had had charge of the academic work 
at Tuskegee during a part of my stay there. Mr. 
Young, however, represented that I could render 
much more effective racial service by reaching a 
large number of persons, young men, daily. After 
much hesitation I went to the Florida State Nor- 
mal and Industrial School, to which Mr. Young 
had been called as President, as instructor in black- 
smithing and wheelwrighting, where I have since 

283 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

been employed. I have done well, and am proud 
that I can say so. 

Of my stay at Tuskegee, what shall I say? It 
was all in all to me. The lessons in shop and 
class-room, the lessons not at all catalogued that go 
into character-forming — all of these I found most 
helpful and invaluable, in making me a man who 
" thinks and feels." I should be tempted to eulogy 
should I try to tell how much I owe to Dr. Wash- 
ington, to his teachers, and to all of the influences 
that assist the student at Tuskegee. 



284 



XIV 

A DRUGGIST'S STORY 

By David L. Johnston 

Shortly after the smoke had cleared away 
from the battle-fields of the Civil War, I was 
ushered into the world in a one-room log cabin in 
Alabama, county of Macon, and near the little 
town of Tuskegee, afterward made famous by 
virtue of the fact that there was established near 
it, by Booker T. Washington, July 4, 1881, the 
Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. That 
I have the honor of being an alumnus of that 
school is one of the best things of which I can 
boast. 

Because I have said that I was born in a one- 
room log cabin, the reader will readily imagine that 
my parentage was humble. My mother and father 
both have gone to the Great Beyond. I bless and 
revere their memory, for two more noble souls 
never lived, hampered as they were by slavery and 
its terrible environments. 

My parents continued to live in the one-room 
285 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

cabin until three other children, making nine in 
all, had come to them. Another room was added 
about this time. The biting poverty of it all led 
my father, with his family, to move to one of 
the famous cotton plantations of Dallas County, 
Ala. I seem to recall taking an interest in the 
world about me quite early. Especially do I re- 
call, as one of my earliest recollections, the death 
of Garfield, so cruelly slain by the madman Gui- 
teau. My father was greatly distressed, I remem- 
ber, by his death. 

For five successive years my life was spent 
working each year on the farms for and with my 
aged father and other members of the family, 
and spending the time, when not so employed, in 
near-by public schools, which at that time, as is 
true in large part now, were conducted only about 
three months in each year. After having acquired 
a slight knowledge of mathematics, it was a great 
pleasure to me to go up each fall to the market 
at Selma, Ala., with my father, to dispose of the 
products of the farm. On one occasion there was 
an apparent interest manifested in me by one of 
the commission merchants, a white man. He per- 
suaded me to return to Selma, after I had accom- 
panied my father home, and to accept a position 

286 



A DRUGGIST'S STORY 

with him as office-boy. I returned as agreed, to 
find either that his promise was a stroke to induce 
my father to trade with him, or that my stay at 
home had been too extended — although it was only 
for three or four days. The position, meanwhile, 
he said, had been filled by another. Thus, I found 
myself, a raw country lad, twenty-seven miles from 
home, without employment and among strangers. 
Next morning, without the knowledge of my par- 
ents, I applied for admittance as a student to the 
Knox Academy at Selma, and without recommen- 
dations, which were immediately demanded of me. 
I was turned away, but not discouraged, for the 
next morning, accompanied by a white friend of 
my father, I again applied and was admitted on 
his recommendation. An examination entitled me 
to begin with the fifth-grade class. 

I also secured employment at this white man's 
home. The money thus received paid for my 
board. By doing odd jobs I managed to make 
sufficient money to pay for lodging with a good 
family. I was thus enabled to spend the fall of 
1883 and the spring of 1884 in school, to my 
very great benefit. I was compelled to return 
home, however, before the term ended, because my 
father's health completely failed him, to take 

287 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

charge of the farm, as I was the senior male child 
in the family at that time. My juvenile mind 
had been awakened by this short school experience 
^ in Selma, and from that time forth I had a thirst 
for more knowledge. 

I was absorbed by this longing, but I took up 
the various other duties which fell to my lot, with 
the earnest purpose of doing my very best. As 
a result, with the aid of other members of the 
family I succeeded in turning over to my invalid 
father, the succeeding fall, eleven bales of cotton 
and other farm products in like proportion. My 
father's health having completely failed, and be- 
cause of a constantly increasing desire for more 
knowledge, I conceived the idea of returning to 
our old home near Tuskegee again. 

January, 1885, found us again living in close 
proximity to the old log cabin in which I was 
born. Not four years before the Tuskegee Nor- 
mal and Industrial Institute had been established. 
The height of my ambition was to be enrolled as 
a student there, but not having sufficient money 
to care for the family and remain in school at 
the same time, and since the term for that year 
was half spent, I sought employment for the re- 
maining winter months, doing such odd jobs in 

288 



A DRUGGIST'S STORY 

and around the little town as I could find to do. 
When spring came, having a fair knowledge of 
farming, I found ready employment with the 
planters of that community. With an ambition 
to enter school the coming fall, I then and there 
began to study every possible method of economy, 
and when summer had passed and school-time had 
come again, with the aid of a younger brother I 
liad cared for the family, and had to my credit 
my first savings of $85. 

Now began the most memorable and the most 
pleasant days in my life. On the 15th day of Sep- 
tember, 1885, I matriculated as a student at Tus- 
kegee, and, after what was then considered a rigid 
examination, succeeded in entering the Junior 
class, the lowest class of the normal grade. There 
was yet before me the task of caring for an aged 
father and mother. That task I considered a 
sacred duty, and, with my limited savings in hand, 
made such purchases as would best give them or- 
dinary comforts through the winter months, and 
on the 22d day of the same month, after having 
made such expenditures as I thought necessary, I 
found that my little pile had been reduced from 
$85 to $14.50, with which sum I paid my tuition 
and board at the normal school. 

289 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

I was permitted by the school authorities to 
work on the school farm the entire term. On the 
26th day of May, when the school closed, there yet 
remained to my credit a sufficient amount to pur- 
chase a ticket to Birmingham, and thence out to 
Pratt City, a near-by suburb. At Pratt City I 
learned to dig coal, and at the end of every month 
they paid me in gold. These shining pieces were 
precious possessions. For four successive sum- 
mers, in order to get sufficient money to care for 
my mother and father and make my way in school, 
I went to Pratt City and worked in the mines, 
at the furnaces, on the railroads, and around the 
coke-ovens, enduring hardships which language 
can hardly describe. But it all paid. The summer 
of 1888 was a trying one, but when the time came 
for me to leave for school I had saved $200. 

On the 30th day of May, 1889, a new epoch 
in my life began. I was ushered into the busy 
world as a graduate of Tuskegee, being in a class 
of twenty -two. I had looked forward to this event 
with pride and was very happy. 

So imbued was I with the pleasant thought 
that I was a graduate of Tuskegee, that I little 
thought of the great responsibilities that awaited 
me, but when my more sober thought came I 

290 



A DRUGGIST'S STORY 

realized that I was going from most pleasant sur- 
roundings not to return the next year; that I 
was going out not to return and meet indulgent 
and persuasive teachers, loving classmates, and de- 
voted friends. I then realized the full meaning of 
the phrase we had selected that year as our class 
motto, " Finished, yet just begun." Finished I 
had at Tuskegee, but I had to begin work and life 
in the great busy world, with confidence alone as 
an asset. The Commencement exercises on this 
particular occasion were most impressive to me, 
made so in part, I suspect, because I was to 
be the happy recipient of a coveted diploma. The 
Commencement speaker was the late Joseph C. 
Price,^ of North Carolina, and he was at his 
best. 

Knowing no other field more inviting, I re- 
turned to Pratt City, where I had worked success- 
fully. On the 6th of June, 1889, I alighted from 
the cars, and after spending a few days visiting 
relatives and friends, applied at No. Four (4) 
Slope for a set of checks *to dig coal. The checks 



' Said to be one of the most eloquent speakers of the Negro people. 
He died in the prime of life. He was President of Livingston College, 
which is mainly supported by the African Methodist Episcopal Zion 
Church, and has a large membership among the colored people. 

20 291 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

were readily given me because of my previous 
record as a miner. After working there during 
the sunmier months, and with the same success 
as had attended me previously, I had secured suf- 
ficient money to straighten out my little financial 
affairs and move my parents and a widowed sis- 
^ ter with six small children from Tuskegee to Pratt 
City, where I had decided permanently to live. 

About this time Pratt City was made, by act 
of the Alabama Legislature, a separate and inde- 
pendent school district, and I had the honor of 
being elected to the principalship of the Negro 
school. There I had my first experience as a 
teacher. I put my whole soul into the work. I 
had before me the example of the Tuskegee 
teachers, and the lessons so thoroughly taught 
there. That I must serve my fellows earnestly and 
unselfishly was never forgotten. 

So pleased was the Board of Education with my 
work that my salary was soon advanced to $110 
per month. This salary was somewhat extraordi- 
nary, but Pratt City, Birmingham, Ensley, etc., 
are in one of the richest mining sections in the 
world, and the money earned by blacks and whites 
is greatly in excess of that earned in other parts 
of the State. I held this position for four years, 

292 



A DRUGGIST'S STORY 

teaching eight and nine months in the year, and 
spending the remaining three or four months of 
the time working in the mines. 

After a time my physical system had begun 
so completely to run down, that I was reluctantly 
compelled to resign the position of teacher. In the 
meantime I had purchased a home at Pratt City. 
Leaving my parents there, I went to Milldale, 
Ala., to take up new work that offered a change 
of climate. I returned every fifteen or thirty 
days, however, to look after the needs of my par- 
ents. The entire expense of caring for them, my 
sister and her children, was quite $60 a month. My 
work at Milldale made good returns. I was with 
the Standard Coal Company, and after I had been 
there fifteen months I had to my credit $1,000, 
an amount I had long striven to save. 

During this time my mother was stricken with 
fever, and after lingering three months (one of 
which I spent at her bedside) she died. Our little 
home was cast in deep sorrow. I returned to 
Milldale and resumed work there. After two years 
had expired I had to my credit, I am glad to 
say, $1,460. With this sum in hand I concluded 
I would take a course in pharmacy. On October 
15, 1894, I entered the JMeharry Medical College 

293 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

at Nashville, Tenn., the dean of which is that 
prince of gentlemen and father of Negro phy- 
sicians, Dr. George W. Hubbard. I completed 
the course February 4, 1896, graduating at the 
head of the class with a general average of 94 J 
per cent. 

I had pleasant associations while there with 
many of my former Tuskegee class- and school- 
mates, among them being Dr. A. H. Kenniebrew, 
now of Jacksonville, 111., and for a while Resident 
Physician 'of the Tuskegee Institute; Dr. T. N. 
Harris, of Mobile, Ala., and Dr. A. T. Braxton, of 
Columbia, Tenn. Each of these is succeeding at the 
places named most satisfactorily as physicians. At 
Meharry it was our constant pleasure to refeir 
to our training at Tuskegee, and to acknowledge 
how indelibly the lessons learned there had been 
stamped upon our minds and hearts. While there 
I had the opportunity to compare the instruction 
received at Tuskegee — that of the academic de- 
partment — with that of the other institutions of 
learning in this and even other countries. At 
Meharry one is thrown in direct contact with edu-. 
cated men and women from the leading Negro col- 
leges of this country, and with many from English 
institutions of note. After careful investigation I 

294 




c 



A DRUGGIST'S STORY 

found that the Tuskegee-trained student, at all 
times, was among the very best there. At Tuske- 
gee I still consider that one of the greatest lessons 
taught is that of " learning to learn." 

At the close of my first year at Meharry I re- 
turned to Birmingham, and after a conference with 
Drs. A. M. Brown and J. B. Kye, colored gradu- 
ates in medicine and pharmacy, and Mr. George 
F. Martin, we decided to open a drug-store to be 
located in Birmingham. About May 7, 1895, the 
doors of the People's Drug Company were opened 
to the public, with the above-named gentlemen and 
myself as the stockholders and owners. Here I 
invested my first money of consequence in a busi- 
ness enterprise, putting in the greater part of the 
money to open the business, which invoiced $1,600 
or more in about five months after the opening. 
After affairs were in good running order I left, 
and returned to Milldale to resume work with the 
Standard Coal Company. During the spring and 
summer of that year I realized about $500 from 
my mining operations. 

In the fall of 1895 I returned to Meharry to 
complete the course already begun. During that 
fall and winter the business was encouragingly 
successful under the management of Dr. Kye, 

295 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

aided by Drs. Brown and Mason; for about that 
time Dr. U. G. Mason, another colored physician, 
had bought Mr. Martin's interest in the company 
and had become a partner in the concern. My 
instructions to the management were to turn over 
to my father my share of the net proceeds of the 
business while I was away. My share of the profits 
kept the family going. My stay at Meharry this 
last term was most pleasant. I had been promoted 
to the dignified position of assistant to Dr. W. M. 
Savier, who was, and is, Dean of the Pharmaceuti- 
cal Department of the institution. 

When I had completed my course I returned to 
Alabama to begin my work as a pharmacist, and 
about April 1, 1896, successfully passed the re- 
quired State examination and was admitted to the 
practise of pharmacy. I took the examination in 
Selma, the beautiful little city on the Alabama 
River where, thirteen years before, I had had my 
desire for knowledge and better opportunities 
awakened. I sold my interest in the People's Drug 
Company at a sacrifice, and immediately opened 
business on " my own hook " at 34 South Twenti- 
eth Street, Birmingham, Ala. In order to begin 
business with some assurance of success, I organized 
another company, and had associated with me in 

296 



A DRUGGIST'S STORY 

this new enterprise (the Union Drug Company) 
Rev. T. W. Walker, Rev. J. Q. A. Wilhite, and 
Mr. C. L. Montgomery — all responsible and en- 
terprising citizens of Birmingham. 

By hard and diligent work the business proved 
a success, and from time to time I bought out 
the interests of the persons named, and accepted 
as a partner a well-known physician and surgeon, 
Dr. George H. Wilkerson. Dr. Wilkerson's con- 
nection with the business caused it rapidly to in- 
crease in volume. When more help was required, 
as soon it was, we secured the services of Mr. 
Jimmie James, a young pharmacist who is with 
me until now. After a period of pleasant business 
association. Dr. Wilkerson's interests in Mobile, 
his former home, demanded his presence there. I 
purchased his interest in the Union Drug Com- 
pany, and the name was changed to the Union 
Drug Store. We had but recently located in our 
own neat little quarters at No. 101 South Twen- 
tieth Street, a one-story brick structure, at which 
place I continued to do business, supported by Drs. 
W. L. Council and J. B. Goin, who sent their pre- 
scriptions to my store, until February 8, 1904. In 
January, 1904, I secured a lot at No. 601 South 
Eighteenth Street, Birmingham, and personally 

297 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

erected there a two-story frame building, which I 
now occupy. 

During my short business career since gradua- 
tion from the medical school, I sought out a part- 
ner for life, and was fortunate to win the hand 
of Miss Pearl L. Strawbridge, of Selma, Ala., who 
had come to Birmingham to make her home with 
her brother, Mr. H. Strawbridge, who now holds 
the honored position of secretary and general 
manager of one of the largest fraternal insurance 
concerns in the country owned and controlled by 
Negroes. Two children, a girl and a boy, have 
been added to our family since the marriage. 

Whatever I have done, or whatever I may do, 
that will deserve favorable comment, I largely at- 
tribute to the fact that I was a student at Tuske- 
gee, and came under the personal care and instruc- 
tion and guidance of its distinguished Founder 
and Principal, Dr. Booker T. Washington, and 
that I have striven, from the first day until now, 
to put into practise the lessons taught me by him 
and his excellent body of teachers. At Tuskegee 
we were taught the truism, "If you can not find 
a way, make one." I hope I am not immodest in 
saying that I think I have, in some degree, done 
tliis. 

298 



XV 

THE STORY OF A SUPERVISOR OF 
MECHANICAL INDUSTRIES 

By James M. Canty 

I WAS born December 23, 1863, in Marietta, 
Cobb County, Ga. My parents, James and Adella 
Canty, were slaves. I am the eldest of two broth- 
ers and three sisters, who are all living. My father 
died in the fall of 1895. Since that time, be- 
cause of circumstances and inclinations, it has been 
my lot to look after the welfare of my mother, 
who is still living in Marietta, Ga., a place of 
about four thousand inhabitants. 

At an early age I entered the public school at 
my home. My father, however, soon put me to 
work, so that I grew up quite ignorant of books. 
He was a carpenter and butcher, and fairly skilled 
in working iron. For a number of years he kept 
a meat-market. At the age of sixteen I was doing 
the principal part of the butchering. Some years 
later, when father was appointed street " boss " 
of the town, I worked as one of the street laborers. 
When he changed his occupation from street 

299 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

" boss " to farmer, mine likewise changed. The 
rule was, a change from one occupation to another, 
working day by day without attention to mental 
growth, and having no thought of the future, till 
I was persuaded to join several other boys who 
had decided to form themselves into a night-class 
for purposes of self -improvement. 

About this time, in compliance with my father's 
desire, and to my delight, I entered a carriage 
factory as an apprentice. It was while working 
there that I received a newspaper from a girl stu- 
dent at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. 
The paper contained a long descriptive article, with 
cuts of buildings, class-rooms, teachers, and stu- 
dents. The student who had sent the paper was 
from my home, and with it came a letter from her 
stating that she had spoken to Mr. Washington 
in my interest, and that if I would come to Tuske- 
gee I would be given a chance to get an education. 
I shall never forget the impression made upon my 
mind by that newspaper article and the young 
woman's letter. 

My father was consulted, and advised against 
my going away to school, saying: " You can con- 
tinue night-school here at home and at the same 
time learn a trade. I never went to school a day 

300 



THE STORY OF A SUPERVISOR 

in my life." Well, I knew that my father, never- 
theless, could read and write a little and do some 
figuring, and that he at one time came within a 
few votes of being elected to the State Legislature 
of Georgia. Contrary to his advice, I concluded 
to go to Tuskegee. Looking back now, and con- 
necting the present with the day on which my de- 
cision was made, I think that time and events have 
vindicated the wisdom of my decision. 

After giving my employer two weeks' notice 
of my intention to give up my work, I hastened 
to arrange my affairs, fearing that procrastina- 
tion might allow some event to change my mind 
and thus alter the whole course of my life. Two 
weeks after giving notice to my employer, I started 
for Tuskegee. I bought a ticket to Atlanta, where 
I spent the night. The next morning I went to 
the station and asked for a ticket to Tuskegee. 
The agent, on looking over his guide-books, said 
to me : " There is no such place as Tuskegee in 
the guide-books." I walked away from the win- 
dow, thinking that, after all, Tuskegee was some 
place that existed only on paper. 

Not wishing to give it up, I turned and ap- 
proached the agent again. He got out maps and 
guides, and finally found Tuskegee, but said he 

301 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

could not sell me a ticket to that place as it was 
not on a railroad, and that the best thing for me 
to do was to purchase a ticket to Chehaw, Ala. So 
my ticket read, From Atlanta to Chehaw. On 
turning to leave the ticket-agent, I inquired how 
I could get to Tuskegee from Chehaw. He re- 
plied that he did not know. But I got there, going 
from Chehaw over a narrow-gauge road. The 
engine that pulled the one coach composing the 
train was named the " Klu-Klux," a thing I had 
heard of but had not understood. That there 
should be many new things to me in the world 
was not to be wondered at, when it was known 
that I had never before been out of the county in 
which I was born except on three occasions, when 
my trips extended only to adjoining counties. 

It was in the month of March, 1886, while 
passing through the town of Tuskegee, that I be- 
held for the first time, standing at a distance, the 
institution that has, in my opinion, done more than 
any other one agency to elevate the Negroes of 
the South. About eight o'clock p.m. I arrived on 
the campus and was assigned to a room by the 
commandant, through the officer of the day.* 



' The West Point system is followed in training the young men. Ex- 
cept that there are no guns, a complete battalion organization exists. 

302 



THE STORY OF A SUPERVISOR 

For about thirty minutes I was alone in the room, 
the student body being at devotional exercises — 
the Tuskegee Institute holding its daily devotions 
at night, instead of in the morning like most 
schools. This is done on account of the day- and 
night-school system, it being impossible to get 
all the students of the school together except at 
night after the night-school session. 

While sitting and thinking of home, of the 
past, and of the future, I took out my pocketbook 
and counted $7.50. Not one cent more had I, and 
as I looked at the money with the thought that 
$7.50 represented the entire savings of my life up 
to that time, gloom and despondency almost over- 
came me. 

The next morning I went to the Principal's 
office. From there I went to be examined, and 
then again to see the Principal. Mr. Washington 
explained that board was charged for at $8 per 
month, and that my books would be sold to me 
at cost. He informed me further that if I entered 
night-school I would be able to work out my board 
and accumulate each month a balance to be used 
in paying my expenses when I entered day-school. 
I was made to understand that this offer was on 
condition that my work and conduct be in every 

303 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

way satisfactory. As the amount of money I 
had did not justify me in entering day-school, 
I matriculated as a night-school student. The 
blacksmith-shop being short of students, I was 
assigned to this division of industry. 

During the remaining part of the year, and the 
following summer, I worked in the shop ten hours 
each day, except Sundays, and devoted about two 
hours and a half at night to study and recitations. 
It is no easy task, during warm weather in Ala- 
bama, for one to work ten hours a day and spend 
two and a half hours at night studying in a room 
lighted by several large lamps suspended from the 
ceiling. Yet this is what hundreds of poor boys 
and girls have done at Tuskegee. Hundreds still 
attend the night-school, but electric lights have 
taken the place of the large oil-lamps. Tuskegee 
is now more modern than it was when I was a 
student there. Barrels and boxes are no longer 
used in the raw state for furniture, as was largely 
the case at that time. Day-students were required 
to work one school-day each week and every other 
Saturday. I was a student nearly five years, 
counting the time when I was a night-student. 

After I entered day-school it was necessary 
that I should work not only on my regular work- 

304 



THE STORY OF A SUPERVISOR 

days and two Saturdays each month, but whenever 
there was work to be done and I could find time 
in which to do it. During my entire life at Tuske- 
gee I worked every Saturday except three. 

I was not long at Tuskegee before an inde- 
scribable force began to have its influence upon me. 
Whatever this power may be called, it was both 
refining and energizing. People who know the 
school and have been there and know of its influ- 
ence, call this force " the Tuskegee spirit." This 
spirit, to the student possessing a spark of man- 
hood, is irresistible. The change in a student at 
Tuskegee is not sudden, nor is it wrought by any 
one element. Things that may seem small when 
taken separately, are invaluable when considered 
in the aggregate. 

At Tuskegee one's attention is constantly 
called to little things. It was a habit of mine, I 
regret to say, to give little or no thought to 
my hat being on my head when I was in any of 
the boys' dormitories, or when passing through the 
halls of the buildings containing the class-rooms. 
My attention was finally called to this habit by one 
of the lady teachers. Passing me one day in the 
hall, she said: " Canty, you have a habit of wear- 
ing your hat through the halls. It is a very bad 

305 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

habit." When I entered Tuskegee I had not 
worn a night-shirt since I was a child. Here it 
was soon impressed upon me that sleeping in a 
night-shirt was a sign of cleanliness, of civilization. 
If there is any place where cleanliness is regarded 
and practised as one of God's first laws, that place 
is Tuskegee. 

One day Mr. Washington sent for me to come 
to his office. I received the message with fear and 
trembling. I had, before this time, had but one 
opportunity to speak to Mr. Washington, and 
then only for a few minutes upon the day follow- 
ing my arrival. On my way to the office I won- 
dered if any rule of the institution had been vio- 
lated by me. Though I had been there only three 
or four weeks, I knew a request for a student 
to report at the Principal's office meant that 
he was to be given notice of imminent punish- 
ment, or consulted upon some matter of vital 
interest. 

When I entered the office, Mr. Washington 
asked me to write to two or three worthy young 
men at my home and inquire if they desired a 
chance to work their way through school. Several 
days had passed when I received an answer from 
one of the young men to whom I wrote. It so hap- 

306 



THE STORY OF A SUPERVISOR 

pened that on the day the letter was received I 
met Mr. Washington on his way to his office, and 
said, " Mr. Washington [drawing the letter from 
my pocket], I have received a letter from — " 
Here my first sentence was cut short by Mr. Wash- 
ington forcibly gesticulating and saying, " Come 
to the office; come to the office and see me 
there." That one lecture on business methods 
impressed me in a way that a chapter of this length 
could not have done. 

One day I closed a door with considerable 
force, which attracted the attention of one of 
the teachers. The teacher, in my presence, again 
opened the door and gently closed it, noiselessly 
and without a word. I have never since forgotten 
the proper way in which to open and close doors. 
Little details are big essentials in the rounding 
out of character. They show the influence of 
the " Tuskegee spirit." But, after all, this spirit 
would not be so irresistible in its influence for good 
if the teachers and officers of the institution were 
not the embodiment and living example of it. 
Here, as elsewhere and everywhere, example is 
more potent than precept. 

Every institution has policies peculiarly its 
own. It is necessary that every teacher and officer 
21 307 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

support that policy to make it effective. Each 
instructor has a distinct individuahty that becomes 
a part of the student, in smaller or greater de- 
gree, and at the same time gives force and 
strength to the. policies of the institution. Though 
I felt the influence of every one of the thirty-odd 
teachers then at Tuskegee, the individuality of 
some of these made a very great impression on 
me. I remember Mr. W. D. Wilson as a very quiet 
and effective disciplinarian. Mr. Warren Logan, 
the treasurer, has the ability to teach the student 
the value of a dollar by making him sacrifice al- 
most beyond the point of endurance. At the same 
time, with a smile and a cheerful disposition, he 
would make the student feel that his burden 
was light. Through the kindness and special in- 
terest manifested in me by Mr. M. T. Driver, who 
was in charge of wheelwrighting and blacksmith- 
ing, I made rapid progress at my trade. Miss 
Adella H. Hunt, who has since become the wife 
of Treasurer Logan, was then a teacher who had 
the faculty of touching a responsive chord in a 
student. Mrs. Booker T. Washington, then Miss 
Margaret J. Murray, impressed me very much. 
Strong and resourceful in dealing with students, 
she always won the best that was in them. My 

308 



THE STORY OF A SUPERVISOR 

student-days were almost at an end when she came 
to Tuskegee. 

I shall ever feel grateful to Mr. J. H. Wash- 
ington for the encouragement he gave me. Being 
superintendent of industries, he was then, as he 
is now, in constant touch with every male student. 
He is a believer in, and a firm advocate of, steady, 
thorough, earnest work, and is quick to see, ap- 
preciate, and encourage the smallest degree of abil- 
ity shown by any student. No time seemed too 
valuable for him to give in trying to advance a 
student in his work. I might add here that the 
teachers here named are, with two exceptions, 
among the pioneers in the building of the school. 

Mr. Booker T. Washington's personahty is the 
great thing at Tuskegee, and every student who 
goes there feels the strength of the man's rugged 
individuality. "Mr. B. T." is an affectionate 
term used by the students, but it springs from an 
indescribable, spontaneous feeling of love and 
veneration. His Sunday evening talks to the stu- 
dents are to me like the Book of Proverbs, always 
timely, encouraging, and applicable to the affairs 
of every-day life. It is from these family talks 
that the students learn, as they never have be- 
fore, the beauty that lies in real, every-day Christi- 

309 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

anity, and in living a real and simple life. It is 
from these talks that the students learn so much 
of the great heart and center of the institution. 
Mr. Washington still delivers Sunday evening 
talks when at school, and they are published in 
the school's weekly paper, The Tuskegee Student. 
Graduates throughout the country eagerly read 
these talks with the same interest and pleasure 
with which they listened to them while in school. 

Mr. Washington taught then, as he teaches 
now, psychology to the Senior class. The student 
has not become intimately acquainted with Mr. 
Washington until he becomes a Senior. It is here 
that the members of the Senior class talk of their 
past and future lives and receive the outpourings 
of a great but simple soul. Mr. Washington's 
long and frequent absences from the school are no 
less regretted by the teachers than by the students. 

Soon after entering school I began to think of 
what I should do after graduating. My inclina- 
tion led me to feel that success would be found 
along mercantile lines. In spite of this I applied 
myself zealously tt) my trade. During my last two 
years in school I did what teaching in blacksmith- 
ing my literary work permitted, the school being 
without an instructor in this industry for a short 

310 



THE STORY OF A SUPERVISOR 

while. There was then no course in engineer- 
ing or in machinery, so I did all the pipe-work 
and kept the machinery of the school in repair. 
In this way I learned something of machinery 
without an instructor. With some pride I recall 
the fact that I " ironed " the first farm- wagons, 
the first two-seated spring-wagon, and the first 
buggy made at Tuskegee. I also " piped " the 
school's first bathroom for girls. 

In May of my Senior year I was very much 
surprised to receive a note from Principal Booker 
T. Washington intimating that he desired me to 
connect myself with the school the following year. 
Later he stated the nature of the work he wanted 
me to do. I accepted the offer he made me. I 
was asked to teach in the night-school and instruct 
in the blacksmith-shop one-half of each week-day. 

A few days after graduation I visited my 
home with the intention of spending the summer 
there. I was there about three weeks, when I re- 
ceived a letter from Mr. John H. Washington 
requesting my return to Tuskegee the next week, 
if I could so arrange. He at that time was both 
superintendent of industries and commandant. 
On my return he informed me that the Principal 
had decided that since his duties as superintendent 

311 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

of industries were so important, he was to be re- 
lieved of all others, and that in lieu of instructing 
in the blacksmith-shop, I was to be offered the 
work as commandant. 

At once I set about getting the boys' rooms in 
order for the opening of school. During the two 
previous years, even while a student, I had vir- 
tually been acting as commandant, since no one 
man could carry double responsibilities such as 
Mr. J. H. Washington had been carrying. I was 
appointed commandant, and placed in charge of 
the night-school for a year. I then resigned, look- 
ing forward to following my old-time inclination 
of engaging in some mercantile business. I knew 
that I could accumulate means for this purpose 
sooner by working at my trade, as I received two 
dollars per day working as a blacksmith during 
vacation seasons at Birmingham, Ala. 

My first marriage occurred in 1891, my wife 
being Miss Sarah J. Harris. We were classmates 
at Tuskegee four years, and graduated together. 
She died in 1894 at Institute, W. Va. Our long 
association and acquaintance made us understand 
each other even before we were married. Having 
become a Christian before myself, she had much to 
do with my conversion while I was a student. She 

312 



THE STORY OF A SUPERVISOR 

was a great help to me in many ways, and through 
her economy I was able to begin the purchase 
of my first property. Portia, the oldest and only 
child now living of the three children born to us, 
is in the Little Girls' Home at Knoxville Col- 
lege, Tenn. In 1897 I was married to Miss Flor- 
ence Lovett, a graduate of Storer College, Har- 
pers Ferry, W. Va. She shares my burdens, and 
is in every way a part of whatever success I am 
able to achieve. Four children have been born 
to us. 

After resigning my position as commandant 
and head of the night-school at Tuskegee, I spent 
a few weeks visiting relatives, and then returned 
to Marietta. Here I worked at my trade in a 
carriage -shop, where a great deal of machine-work 
was done for two furniture factories and a pla- 
ning-mill. Much of my time was spent in repair- 
ing machinery and making bits and knives for 
the factories. 

While at home I tried to make myself a part 
of the people in a helpful way. I lived with my 
parents about two miles from the town. On my 
father's farm was a church, the ground for which 
had been given by my father. I was elected su- 
perintendent of the Sunday-school of this church, 

313 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

and filled this position as long as I remained there. 
Soon after the Sunday-school was started it oc- 
curred to me that the young people of the com- 
munity could be greatly helped by a literary so- 
ciety. With the aid of others I organized a society 
and was elected its president. We met every Fri- 
day night at the house of some member. It was 
the custom to meet at different places, so that the 
long distances necessary to walk would be equally 
shared by all. Even by this arrangement some 
had to walk three and four miles, but the pleasure 
and benefit derived from attending the society re- 
paid us for the trouble. 

After I had been at my home about a year, I 
received a letter from Mr. Booker T. Washington 
requesting that I write to Mr. J. Edwin Camp- 
bell, Principal of the West Virginia Colored In- 
stitute, then located near Farm, W. Va. En- 
closed with Mr. Washington's letter was one Mr. 
Campbell had written, asking that a Tuskegee 
graduate be named to take the position of Super- 
intendent of Mechanics. This title has since been 
changed to Superintendent of Mechanical Indus- 
tries. On January 3, 1893, I arrived at the West 
Virginia Colored Institute and entered upon my 
duties, and have hejd the position ever since. 

314 




y: 



z 2 



THE STORY OF A SUPERVISOR 

In the early summer of 1898 Mr. J. H. Hill, 
who was then principal, resigned to accept a Lieu- 
tenancy in a company of United States Volunteers. 
During the interim following the resignation of 
Mr. Hill and the appointment of Mr. J. McHenry 
Jones, the present principal, I was placed in 
charge of the school by the Board of Regents. 
Mr. Jones was elected principal September 21, 
1898. 

Until the fall of 1898 my duties were many 
and varied, as I had no assistance in carrying on 
the industrial work of the school. I taught black- 
smithing, carpentering, and mechanical drawing. 
Besides this, I have had to put the sewerage system 
into the institution, and the heating apparatus into 
several of the school buildings. Still, a part of my 
time in 1894 was devoted to teaching in the liter- 
ary department. My work now, while as exacting 
as ever, is more along the line of superintend- 
ing the mechanical industries and in teaching me- 
chanical drawing. 

The school has grown, since my coming here, 
from 3 teachers and 30 students to a faculty of 18 
teachers and 187 students. There are 6 instructors 
in the mechanical department for boys. We give 
instruction in carpentry, printing, blacksmithing, 

315 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

brick masonry, plastering, wheelwrighting, and 
mechanical drawing. These industries are housed 
in a building— the " A. B. White Trades Build- 
ing"— that cost $35,000. 

In concluding this sketch, I repeat with empha- 
sis what I said in the beginning : Whatever my ac- 
complishments may be, the credit is due to Tuske- 
gee. I do not wish in life to be regarded as a 
man of chance possibilities, but rather as one who 
has consistently persevered in all of his struggles. 
Tuskegee teaches nothing with greater force than 
that success lies in that direction. Principal Wash- 
ington, among other things, has taught that it is 
necessary to get property and have a bank-account. 
I have complied with that teaching. I own a farm 
of 100 acres within one-eighth of a mile of the 
school. My first property, which I still own, con- 
sists of a one-acre lot and a seven-room house. 
It gives me pleasure to contribute annually $10 
to Tuskegee, although this but inadequately ex- 
presses my gratitude to the institution to which 
I owe so much. 



316 



XVI 

A NEGRO COMMUNITY BUILDER 

By Russell C. Calhoun 

I HAVE been asked to here set forth incidents 
of my hfe as I remember them, especially as they 
relate to my life at Tuskegee and my work since 
leaving there. Though there have been quite a 
number of events in my life, it is somewhat diffi- 
cult for me to give them in the way they are now 
desired, as it never occurred to me that they would 
be worth repeating. 

Concerning my ancestry, it is impossible for me 
to give anything beyond my maternal grandfather, 
who was about three-fourths Indian. My recol- 
lections of him go back to the time when I was 
about six or seven years of age. My mother, hav- 
ing more children than she could really care for, 
decided to allow one of my brothers, who was per- 
haps a year and a half younger than I, and myself, 
to live with him and his second wife. 

My grandfather was quite seventy-five years 
of age when we went to live with him, and was too 

317 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

feeble to work. He was supported from the poor- 
house, which gave him a peck of meal, 2j pounds 
of bacon, 1 pound of coffee, 1 pound of brown 
sugar, and once a month 25 cents' worth of flour. 
That, together with the little his wife could earn 
from place to place, constituted the " rations " of 
all of us for a week. 

Of my birth no record was kept, my mother 
having been a slave. All I have been able to learn 
of the date of my birth is what my mother remem- 
bers connected with the close of slavery. In trying 
to ascertain from her when I was born, she said, 
" You was born some time just after Christmas, in 
the month of January, the third year after the sur- 
render." 

My mother had twelve children. I was the 
eighth child and the second one born after slavery. 
All except two of the children were born in the 
same one-room log cabin with a dirt floor, in the 
town of Paulding, Jasper County, Miss. My 
mother did the cooking for her master's family and 
the plantation help, did all of the milking, and 
was also washer-woman. 

In the sunmier of 1896 I again visited Pauld- 
ing, just after graduating from Tuskegee. I 
had to go there to move my aged mother to more 

318 



. A NEGRO COMMUNITY BUILDER 

comfortable quarters. She was quite ill, and died 
soon after I reached Florida with her. When I 
went to Paulding I measured the house in which 
I was born, and found it to be 9 feet wide, 17 
feet long, 7 feet high, with no windows, with but 
one door, and a dirt chimney. The furnishing 
as I remember it was composed of a chair, a stool, 
a table, and my mother's bed, which was con- 
structed in one corner of the house. The bed was 
made by putting a post in the ground and nail- 
ing two pieces of wood to the wall from this post, 
then by putting in a floor, making something like 
a box to hold the bedding. The children slept 
in a similarly constructed place, except that the 
mattress was on the ground and was filled with 
straw. Our bedding, for the most part, was what 
wearing apparel we possessed thrown over us at 
night. Outside the house was a long bench, which 
was kept for the accommodation of visitors. 

A peculiar incident in our home life happened 
one Sunday morning in March — one Easter Sun- 
day. All of the smaller children were seated on 
the floor eating their breakfasts from pans and 
skillets, when a big black snake, without any re- 
gard for the children, went into a hole by the fire- 
place. When one of my older brothers undertook 

319 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

to find him and opened this hole, he found, instead 
of one, four black snakes that had been wintering 
in the side of the house. 

There was no church or school for us in that 
whole section. A white man, a Doctor Cotton, to 
whom I was afterward given until I should be- 
come twenty-one years of age, sent his boys to 
a school which required that they walk eight miles 
to it and return each day. 

When I was perhaps eight years of age I re- 
member that my mother and all of the children 
went to Spring Hill to a camp -meeting ; that was 
the first service at which I had heard a minister.. 
They had a Sunday-school, and I was put into a 
class. The teacher gave us leaflets and asked us 
to read where we found the big letter "A." This 
was the first and only letter that I knew for many 
years. This camp -meeting was held once a year, 
though at times there would be prayer-meetings 
among the different families on the plantation. 

My mother, being a hard-working woman and 
knowing the value of keeping children busy, com- 
pelled every one of us to work in some way around 
the house or on the farm. I know of no lesson 
which she taught me and which has been of more 
value to me than that of " doing with your might 

320 



A NEGRO COMMUNITY BUILDER 

what your hands find to do." It was a rule of 
her household that we should not go to bed with- 
out having water in the house. The water had 
to be brought from a spring a mile and a half 
away. I remember clearly how one night one of 
my brothers and myself tried to deceive her; how 
we secured some not overclear water from a hole 
near-by our home, and how she pitched it out and 
sent us the whole distance to the spring. Al- 
though this was many years ago, I now see, more 
and more, what it means to go all the way to the 
real spring, and I thank her memory for the lesson. 

When I was about ten years of age the same 
Doctor Cotton of whom I have spoken came to 
my grandmother's to hire one of the boys to mind 
the bars, as the teams were hauling corn to the barn 
and the drivers did not want to put them up each 
time. I was delighted to be the chosen one of the 
two. My first chance to earn money was thus 
offered. 

I stayed there every day from sunrise to sun- 
set for a little more than three weeks, and it was a 
happy day when Doctor Cotton requested all hands 
to come up and be paid off. I do not know what 
the rest received; though I had boarded from the 
scanty fare before mentioned at my grandmother's 

321 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

home, he gave me fifteen cents, paying me in three 
nickels. I had never had any money in my hands 
before, and for fear I might lose it I put it in 
my pocket and held the pocket with both hands, 
and ran for more than two miles, carrying it home. 
One nickel of the three was given me for my share. 

Seemingly this Doctor Cotton was very much 
impressed with the way I had performed my duty 
at the bars, for in the next few weeks he again 
visited my grandmother. I was quite anxious to 
know what his frequent visits meant, and was very 
much delighted, as well as surprised, when it was 
told me, one morning when it was very cold, and 
I had on only two pieces of clothing made of some 
very coarse material resembling canvas, that I 
was to live with Doctor Cotton until reaching man- 
hood, and was to eat at his house. He told me 
in my grandmother's presence that if I would 
stay with him until I was twenty-one years of age 
I would receive a horse, a bridle and saddle, a 
suit of clothes, and $10, in addition to my " keep." 
This was such an apparently big offer that my 
grandmother's and my heart leaped for joy. 

When I had lived with him for a few days 
I had given me the first pair of shoes, of the 
copper-toe variety, I ever wore. 

322 



A NEGRO COMMUNITY BUILDER 

I have never forgotten my first day's stay at 
this new home. My whole object that first day 
was to eat everything in sight. At my own home 
I slept on the dirt floor; at this new home I slept 
in the attic, my bed being a pile of cotton-seed with 
a quilt for covering. My duty at this new home 
was to attend to the horses, to bring the cows from 
the pasture, sweep the yard, wait on the table, 
nurse two children, etc. I stayed at this place for 
two and one-half years, and as my knowledge 
of things increased my duties became more and 
more exacting. 

During this whole time, and for two years be- 
fore, I had not seen or heard from my mother. I 
was twenty miles from any raih'oad, and had never 
seen or heard of a railroad train. We lived on 
the public road between Paulding and Enterprise, 
and by some means I heard that my mother had 
gone to the " railroad." Though I had never been 
away on my own resources, I resolved to do bet- 
ter than I was doing. I remember very well that 
it was Monday morning when one of the doc- 
tor's daughters said to me, " Russell, you go down 
to 'Vina's house, tell her to come and scour for 
me; come by the store and get a package of soda; 
then come through the field and drive the turkeys 
22 323 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

home." Providence never favored any one more 
than it did me on that day. I went by the store 
and told them to do up the soda, I went by and 
told 'Vina that she was wanted, but I did not drive 
the turkeys home. 

I started out in search of my mother, and after 
walking more than half the distance I overtook 
an ox-team, and the driver allowed me to ride a 
part of the way. I reached the railroad town 
about night, and standing there was a freight train 
of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. 

I was never so frightened in all my life as 
when the whistle blew and this object moved away. 
I remember asking the driver of the ox-team 
where the thing's eyes were, and where the horses 
were that pulled it. 

The doctor, suspecting that I had gone to 
Enterprise in search of my mother, made plans 
to capture me and have me returned, but all of 
this failed. By good fortune I found my brother, 
who was married and living in this town; here 
again I became a nurse, having to care for his two 
children. 

Afterward I went to live with a white family 
which was very kind to me. The young man who 
carried me to his house as a nurse put into my 

324 



A NEGRO COMMUNITY BUILDER 

hands, after I had been there some months, the 
first spelling-book I had ever had; saying to me 
that if I would stay with them for two years, 
he would at the end of that time send me to 
school. I stayed at this place for some months, 
when my mother came from somewhere, I know not 
where, and with five of the boys we joined ourselves 
together to work on a plantation on " halves." 
We worked very hard that year. 

Our food was furnished by the owner of the 
plantation. On many of those long, cold days, for 
all day, we had only a " pone " of corn bread. At 
the close of the year, after the owner had taken his 
half, and on account of bad management on the part 
of an older brother who had charge of affairs, my 
mother and her younger children received nothing 
for the year's work, and this, notwithstanding the 
fact that we made five and one-half bales of cotton 
and a large quantity of corn and peas. I received 
as my " salary " for the year's work one shirt worth 
thirty cents and a pair of suspenders worth about 
fifteen cents. I resolved to run away again. This 
trip was made at night, on foot, over newly laid 
railroad-ties, for a distance of seventeen miles. 

I reached Meridian, Miss., at a late hour of 
the night, and took refuge in a shed used for the 

325 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

storing of railroad iron. The next morning I 
overheard two colored men, who were on their 
way to get meat ready for the town-market two 
miles away, talking. I joined these men, and 
sought employment along with them, but they 
soon learned that I knew nothing of " butchering." 
However, the owner of the pen, who had a large 
garden, gave me a trial, and I remained with him 
y for three years. 

After I was there a little more than a year 
my work was to plant and care for the small seeds. 
This man, Mr. Nady Sims, was a good man, and 
I had no cause for leaving him except that of wish- 
ing to get a place to earn more money, that I might 
help care for my mother and her smaller children. 

I went next to a brick-yard, where I received 
fifty cents per day. There were three boys at each 
" table," and we had to " oiF-bear " 5,500 bricks, 
the task for each day. This was indeed hard work. 

Drifting into hotel work, I soon acquired the 
habit of most of those who are engaged in such 
work: I spent all I earned for fine clothes. 

During my stay on the vegetable farm I 
boarded at the home of one of the young men 
previously referred to, whose sister, Mary Clinton, 
who has since become my wife and devoted as- 

326 



A NEGRO COMMUNITY BUILDER 

sistant, one day heard a woman say she knew of 
a school in Alabama where boys and girls could 
work for their education, and that she was going 
to send her boy to that school. This thought re- 
mained in her mind for some months, and she 
decided to go to Tuskegee, though her brothers 
and sisters discouraged the idea, feeling, as they 
said, that if she went to this unknown place her 
whole life would be a failure. 

She reached Tuskegee in September, 1885, at 
a time when there was but one building. She 
worked in many places while there, including the 
laundry, the teachers' dining-room, the sewing 
division, with Principal Washington's family, as 
well as with the families of other teachers. On 
account of poor health, especially because of throat 
trouble, she was compelled to return home at the 
end of five years without graduating. 

No sooner had she reached home again than 
she began a crusade for Tuskegee. I was then 
twenty-one years of age, had never had a day's 
schooling, and could read but very little. I pro- 
posed marriage to Miss Clinton as soon as she re- 
turned, but she replied: "You do not know any- 
thing except about hotel work. I have been to 
Tuskegee and see the need of your knowing some- 

32T 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

thing. I also need to know more than I do. 1 can 
easily marry some one who knows more than you 
do, but if you will go to school 1 will assist you in 
any way that I can." This proposition I accepted, 
and on September 2. 1890, I reached Tuskegee and 
began my tirst day in school. 

I had some knowledge of carpentry, and was 
for tliat reason assigned to the carpenter-shop 
for work during the day; I attended school at 
night. 

There were ninety-three young men and women 
in the class when I entered school; of that number 
only two, in addition to myself, remained through 
the entire course. I can never forget my examina- 
tion by ^liss jMaggie J. ^lurray, now ]Mrs. Booker 
T. Washington. There were quite three hundred 
new students in the chapel of Porter Hall, one of 
the oldest buildings of the institution, taking ex- 
aminations at the same time. 

She gave me two slips of paper, a pencil, and 
the questions, and said to me : " Write the an- 
swers to these questions." She went about other 
duties, and after about three hours returned to 
me for my papers; then for the first time in 
my life I learned the meaning of geography and 
aritlmietic. The slips of paper mentioned asked 

328 



A nk(;ro community hcjh.dkr 

({ijcstions on tfiosc sufijccts. J fi?i,fl not, put, Jirjy- 
tiiin^ on t.lif; \)ii\H-r. She iiHk(j\ rnc if" I kfjfrw of 
uny \iLrfj;<: (Mt.ics; if I had nvcr csohhcjI a river or 
seen a hill; if 1 knr;w the rjarne of the raiJrr)aH over 
whicFi I had come trj reaeh '^Fuske^ee. 

1 was ahle to arisvt'er each of the.s<; fjuestions 
very reariily; and sfie said, "(Calhoun, that is ge- 
ography." 

She assigned rrjf; to fjne oi' \}\<: lowest classes in 
the night-school. J hought hrK>ks which cost $1.70, 
and }iad fifty-two cents left. I soon spent the 
fifty cents. 

Vor seven months during my first year's stay 
my only possession was represented hy a two-cent 
stamp. 1 had had many " good friends " f>efore 
going to '^I'uskegee, anrJ (Jehated long as to which 
of them 1 should devote the two-cent stamp, trust- 
ing to receive some financial aid. finally I de- 
cificfi on one of these " gfKKJ friends." I u.sed the 
stamjj, and have not heard from him from that 
day to this. 

While carpentry was my special trade, I found 
the opportunity to get information as to the other 
industries on the grounds. All of this supplemental 
study has proved most helpful to me in my present 
work. 

329 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

Most persons who enter school for the first 
time, and especially industrial schools, get wrong 
impressions at the start. Notwithstanding the 
fact that I was a young man who had " knocked 
about " the world quite a little, I thought I had 
made a mistake in entering school, and did not 
begin to see that I had done properly until I had 
been there for eight or nine months. I asked for 
an excuse to leave school early in the first term; 
it was denied me. I tried to sell my trunk for 
$7, so that I might run away. I had a penchant 
for running away from disagreeable surroundings. 
I was offered $6, but for the sake of the difi'erence 
of $1 I decided to remain. 

I do not hesitate to say that each day I live in 
my heart I most heartily thank the good friends 
who have made it possible for Tuskegee to be; 
I am also most grateful that I was able to reach 
it and receive the training which I received there. 
I did nothing great while at Tuskegee, but I re- 
member with pride that I gave no trouble in any 
way during my sojourn. 

I used my spare hours making picture-frames, 
repairing window-shades, making flower-stands 
and flower-boxes, and working flower-gardens for 
the various Faculty families. The money received 

330 



A NEGRO COMMUNITY BUILDER 

I saved until the end of the school term. At the 
end of each term there were always a large num- 
ber of students who cared nothing for their books, 
and all but gave them away. Looking three 
months ahead, I bought these books and sold them 
to new students who entered the following year. 

One year alone I cleared $40 in this way. The 
second-hand book business among the students be- 
gan from this effort on my part to add to my 
little pile of cash money. 

Having completed the course with a class 
of thirty-one members, May 26, 1896, I started 
straight for my home. Meridian, Miss. 

For six years, as a student, I had been at Tus- 
kegee and under its influences; now I had only 
my conscience to dictate to me and to keep me 
straight. Feeling that I could not do much good 
at Meridian, I started for Texas, having had a 
position promised me. 

I reached Mobile, Ala., while en route, and 
heard that Miss Mary Clinton, previously men- 
tioned, was in Tampa, Fla. Feeling that she 
still had some interest in me, I again decided to 
go to her for advice. 

I reached the city of Tampa with but a small 
sum in my pocket. The town was undergoing a 

331 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

" boom," and I was certain that it would not be 
long before I would be earning something, but, 
to my disappointment, I found about thirty men 
looking for every job in sight. After much weary- 
ing search I became thoroughly convinced that 
Tampa was too large a city not to give me some- 
thing to do besides " looking up into the air." 
Finally, one rainy morning I secured work at a 
freight-house. 

It was my lot to go first up the wet, steep, 
and slippery gang-plank. Not being used to such 
a task, I fell, the truck with 350 pounds narrowly 
escaping me. I got up and made a second at- 
tempt to carry my load, and with success. I had 
been there two months when the agent wanted some 
new shelves built in the storehouse. He told one 
of his employees to go for a carpenter. He re- 
plied, " This man Callioun can do any such work 
you want done." The agent had me get my tools 
and do the work. A few days afterward he wanted 
a first-class cook to prepare and serve a special 
Christmas dinner. The same employee told him, 
" Calhoun can do it." 

The motto of my class was, " We Conquer by 
Labor." 

On April 29, 1897, both Miss Clinton and 
332 



A NEGRO COMMUNITY BUILDER 

myself were called to a school in South Carolina, 
and in a simple way, with $50 saved, we married 
and boarded the train for our new field of labor. 
After giving up our work and reaching Sanford, 
125 miles away, we received a letter asking us to 
defer our coming until the following October. 

This was a very, very sad disappointment and 
trial to us. It was two weeks before the State 
examinations would be held. We prepared as best 
we could, and as a result of the examination we 
were sent to Eatonville, Fla., to take charge of 
the public school there. Eatonville is a Negro 
town with colored officers, a colored postmaster, 
and colored merchants. There is not a single 
white person living within the incorporated city; 
it promises to be a unique community. It is situ- 
ated near the center of Orange county, six miles 
from Orlando, the county seat, and is two miles 
from the Seaboard Air-Line Railroad, and one 
and one-half miles from the Atlantic Coast Line 
Railroad. 

It was said by the late Bishop H. B. Whipple, 
of Wisconsin — whose winter home for a number 
of years was a half mile from this place — who 
had helped the people of this community, and who 
was a constant helper and adviser to my wife and 

333 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

me in our work until his death, that you might 
travel the whole State over and not find a more 
healthy place. We were here but a few days when 
we decided that this was the place for us to begin 
putting into practise the lessons taught us at Tus- 
kegee. We felt that we wanted to do something 
toward helping our people. We decided to cast our 
lot permanently at Eatonville. 

Our first " industrial " service was done with 
the aid of the school children: we cleaned the 
street of tin cans and other rubbish. 

We found the lessons in economy which we 
had received at Tuskegee very valuable to us at 
this trying time. We felt that if we would prop- 
erly impress the lessons most needed we should 
own a home, a cow, some chickens, a horse, and 
a garden; we felt that there should be tangible 
ownership on the part of the people of some of 
these things, at any rate. 

These things we started to get as soon as pos- 
sible. We wanted to teach the people by example. 

After talking in a general way for some days 
of the value of industrial education, coupled with 
that of intelligent class-room instruction, Mrs. Cal- 
houn succeeded in getting four girls to come to her 
home for sewing lessons. That was the first step. 

334 



A NEGRO COMMUNITY BUILDER 

Incidentally, we heard of the philanthropic in- 
stincts of a gentleman, Mr. E. C. Hungerford, 
living at Chester, Conn., who had conditionally of- 
fered to another school twenty acres of land, and 
whose offer was not met. I wrote to him asking 
if he would give us the land. He replied that he 
would be glad to give us forty acres if we would 
use it for school purposes. 

On February 24, 1899, having the deed in hand, 
a board of trustees was selected, and, with the aid 
of nine men who cleared one and one-half acres of 
land while their wives furnished the dinner, we 
started what is now the Robert C. Hungerford 
Industrial School. The new school now owns 280 
acres of land secured as follows: From Mr. and 
Mrs. E. C. Hungerford, 160 acres; from Mr. and 
Mrs. T. W. Cleavland, 40 acres; from Mrs. Nancy 
B. Hungerford, 40 acres; by purchase, an addi- 
tional 40 acres. 

The school has two dormitories, Booker T. 
Washington Hall, the J. W. Alfred Cluett Me- 
morial Hall, and six other buildings used for shops, 
barn, and dining-room. The total value of the 
property, clear of all indebtedness, is $22,445. We 
teach the boys blacksmithing, wheelwrighting, car- 
pentry, agriculture, stock-raising, poultry-raising, 

335 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

and truck-gardening; the girls receive instruction 
in di'essmaking, plain sewing, cooking, launder- 
ing, millinery, basketry, and housekeeping. We 
give no industry at the expense of the literary 
work. 

The academic department covers a useful 
course of the English branches. The moral, re- 
ligious, industrial, and financial influence of the 
school upon the conmiunity, as well as upon the 
students who have attended, \^'ho come from many 
counties in the State, has grown steadily as the 
years have come and gone. The school has at 
present forty-five young people in the boarding de- 
partment, including seven teachers, three of whom 
have come from Tuskegee; a large enrohnent of 
students from the unmediate community and from 
the surromidmg territory. 

I have riot said very much regarding the diffi- 
culties, the struggles, to plant this work, but I 
am glad to say that from the beginning we have 
had the friendliest support and advice from all 
the white people of this section, officials and citi- 
zens alike. 

I owe much of my success in the work here to 
the cheerful and freely given counsel at all times 
of Hon. W. L. Pahner, Representative in the 

336 



A NEGRO COMMUNITY BUILDER 

State Legislature, and to the members of the 
Board of Public Instruction of this (Orange) 
county. 

The colored people have had little to give in 
cash, but have been most liberal in their contribu- 
tions of labor. They have been willing to help 
themselves. 

My constant, my most earnest desire is to prove 
myself worthy of my opportunities, that I may con- 
tinue to be a worthy representative of Tuskegee. 
I feel that I owe all that I am, all that I can 
hope to be, to the training of my mother, to the 
constant help and counsel of my wife, and to 
Tuskegee, my Tuskegee, from which I have re- 
ceived so many lessons that have been of incal- 
culable help to me. I look back to my lessons in 
carpentry, as well as to all the others, with grati- 
tude for the thoroughness insisted upon in all di- 
rections. I was rescued from a life of aimlessness, 
and put in the" way of doing something of good 
for my fellows. 



337 



XVII 

THE EVOLUTION OF A SHOE- 
MAKER 

By Charles L. Marshall 

I WAS born in the town of Henderson, State 
of Kentucky, January 1, 1867. My father and 
mother were both slaves. My father rendered serv- 
ice during the Civil War as a Union soldier. 

As early as I can remember there was in Hen- 
derson a public free school for colored children. 
In 1872 there came to our town a young man 
from Louisville, Ky., John K. Mason by name, 
to take charge of the school. How he secured his 
education I never learned, but that he devoted his 
life to the uplift of his race is everywhere in that 
section clearly in evidence. Unfortunately, I was 
not permitted as a boy to go to school, but became 
a factory lad instead; for, almost before I was 
old enough to begin my education, I was put to 
work in a tobacco factory, and there I remained. 
From childhood to manhood I think I spent, all 
told, not more than three years in school. 

338 



EVOLUTION OF A SHOEMAKER 

Somehow I had a faint idea of the value of 
education, and manifested a desire for learning 
by securing the services of a young man, whose 
country-school term had expired, to give me les- 
sons at night when not otherwise engaged. He 
was quite a " society " man, so that my school- 
nights were few in number. 

While my father did not provide for my edu- 
cation, he was himself an industrious man and 
provided that I should not be idle. Each year, 
when the tobacco season was over, I had regular 
employment in a cooper-shop with my father, and 
I learned to make barrels and hogsheads. This 
trade I found to be quite valuable, for before I 
was twenty-one years of age I was able to demand 
wages of two dollars a day as a cooper. 

Quite incidentally I heard of the work being 
done at Tuskegee by Principal Booker T. Wash- 
ington and the opportunity oiFered there to get 
an education. I at once applied for admission. 
I received a letter from the Principal admitting 
me to school in the autumn of 1889, when I was 
twenty-two years of age. I did not enter the 
school, however, until 1890. I registered as a 
night-school student and asked to be assigned to 
the carpenter-shop, as that seemed more in line 
23 339 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

with coopering. This division was so crowded that 
I was forced to take shoemaking instead. At 
this trade I worked two years and attended night- 
school. At the end of this period I resolved to 
go to North Alabama and work in the coal-mines 
to get money for clothing, books, and to help 
me along with my expenses when the money earned 
at Tuskegee should run out. Realizing that every 
dollar in my school life would count, I decided 
to live most cheaply, even cooking for myself. 
In the end, following this method, I had more 
money with which to return to school. I worked 
all day and returned to work again the same night, 
that I might not lose the prize of education, the 
pursuit of which I kept daily before me. 

Somewhere I heard this quotation, " If any- 
body else can, I can, too." With this sentiment I 
continued to push ahead, until in May, 1895, I 
completed the course of study with the first honor 
of my class. 

During my stay at Tuskegee I made such a 
record in the shoemaking-shop that my instructor 
was anxious to have me take an assistant's place 
with him. This I refused, preferring to start a 
career in Texas, of which I had heard such glowing 
accounts. In the months of June, July, and a 

340 



EVOLUTION OF A SHOEMAKER 

part of August, 1895, I was employed with others 
making the shoes which constituted a part of Tus- 
kegee's Industrial Exhibit at the Atlanta Expo- 
sition. At the solicitation of a number of persons 
living at Mineola, Tex., I decided, even before 
graduation, to begin my life-work at that place. 
Reaching Mineola, I found a fight on hand be- 
tween the teacher of the colored school and the pa- 
trons of the school. Immediately on learning this 
fact I withdrew from the contest, notwithstanding 
the fact that my cash earnings were almost ex- 
hausted and those who had invited me there seemed 
unable to guarantee me the position. An incident 
occurred at Mineola which I shall never forget. It 
was the second meeting with Prof. H. T. Kealing, 
then president of Paul Quinn College, Waco, 
Tex., but now editor of the African Methodist 
Episcopal Church Review, an ambitious magazine 
publication of the great African Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. The occasion was a Quarterly 
Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal 
Church at Mineola, and Professor Kealing was 
there to deliver a lecture. Our first meeting was 
at Tuskegee while I was a student there during 
my Senior year. In that far-away country I 
was very glad to see some one I knew, and after 

341 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

the meeting I was not long in making myself 
known to Professor Kealing. He heard my story, 
praised the stand I had taken, and expressed re- 
grets that he was not able to offer me a place in 
Paul Quinn College. He suggested that I take 
a letter of introduction to Dr. I. B. Scott, then 
president of Wiley University, Marshall, Tex., 
but now a Bishop in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, the first colored man to be elected to the 
episcopacy of that great church. 

At Wiley I was kindly received by Bishop 
Scott, and entered into a contract with him to 
teach shoemaking for my board and the proceeds 
of the shop. I entered into the spirit of Wiley 
with such earnestness that at the close of my 
first month I was made a salaried teacher at $35 
a month, and before the session was half gone 
my salary had been raised to $40. I completed 
the year's work with perfect satisfaction to all 
concerned. What I enjoyed most of all during 
my year at Wiley was the esteem and personal 
friendship of Bishop Scott. His letters addressed 
to me upon the eve of my resignation, the esteem 
he placed on my work while in the employ of the 
University, and his entreaties that I should not 
tender my resignation so embarrassed me that for 

342 



EVOLUTION OF A SHOEMAKER 

a time I was unable to tell what I should do. I 
felt I owed it to Tuskegee to go wherever Princi- 
pal Washington thought my services were most 
desired. On two occasions since I left there 
Bishop Scott has taken occasion to voice his ap- 
proval of my conduct while at Wiley: once before 
the East Tennessee Conference of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, and in October, 1902, to my 
students, when he came to visit me at the Chris- 
tiansburg Institute. 

About the first of May, 1896, I received a tele- 
gram from Principal Washington requesting me 
to allow him to present my name to the Board of 
Managers of the Christiansburg Industrial Insti- 
tute for the principalship then vacant. I agreed, 
and was elected to the place. Before entering 
upon the duties of my new position at Christians- 
burg I made a visit to Tuskegee, for the purpose 
of gaining information as to the scope of my work 
and as to how I should best proceed. 

After spending nearly two months at Tuske- 
gee, I made my way to my new field of labor 
in Virginia, reaching Christiansburg the 15th of 
July, 1896. The appearance of things at Chris- 
tiansburg did not come up to my expectations, nor 
was my reception in accordance with what I had 

343 



y 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

expected. Under the conditions which then ex- 
isted, one of more experience than I had would have 
expected just about such a reception as I received. 
The people seemed almost crazed that a Tuskegee 
graduate should be planning to engraft the Tuske- 
gee Idea in that section — and this, too, in spite of 
Hampton. In my effort to carry out the plans 
sanctioned by Dr. Washington, I soon realized I 
was facing opposition well-nigh insurmountable. 
This was due to their misunderstanding of Dr. 
Washington, and of what Tuskegee really stands 
for. As far as possible, I gathered around me 
men and women who, like myself, were thoroughly 
imbued with the Tuskegee Idea, and together we 
pushed ahead with our plans. 

From the first I was given to understand that 
the desire of the Board was that there should be 
at Christiansburg a school similar to Hampton 
and Tuskegee; though smaller, it should be no less 
perfect in what it was designed to do. To reach 
this end the school had to undergo the change from 
a distinctly literary school to one with both literary 
and industrial branches; from a regular, ordinary 
school to one with a boarding department. My 
plans met the approval of all concerned, yet there 
was httle idea on my part as to the amount of 

344 



EVOLUTION OF A SHOEMAKER 

money and labor necessary to put them into opera- 
tion. The course of study was rearranged to suit 
the new conditions, and five industries were in- 
stalled. A circular setting forth the purposes of 
the school was published and scattered abroad. We 
then thought that this was nearing the end of the 
great task, when in reality we had hardly begun. 

The Board of Managers did not oppose the 
boarding department, yet they did not sanction it 
to the extent of supporting it. 

I had confidence in my plans and was willing 
to start alone. This step was far more perplexing 
than I had at first imagined. As the time drew 
near for the opening of school, I was aware that 
for the boarding department I had to find a suit- 
able house and procure necessary furniture. In 
the basement of the school building was some lum- 
ber which had been used for a platform. With the 
assistance of one of the teachers this stage-lumber 
was converted into five bedsteads and three small 
tables. I succeeded in getting one of the merchants 
to credit us for several lamps. With this furniture, 
several stools, an equal number of dry -goods boxes, 
and a few kitchen utensils, the boarding depart- 
ment of the institution was started. Notwith- 
standing the scanty arrangement, I am glad to say 

34i5 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

that for the most part there was but Httle or no 
complaint. 

Sufficient money was appropriated by the 
Board of Managers to provide for the purchase 
of necessary working tools for the added industrial 
classes. 

I kept our friends in the North reminded of 
our need of additional land. The industrial-school 
idea with a department of agriculture was not 
succeeding well on a half-acre of ground. After 
two years of patient toil this question of land was 
recognized as a necessity, and accordingly two 
friends undertook to solicit subscriptions to the 
amount of $5,000 with which to purchase a farm 
of 100 acres, two horses, a set of harness, a wagon, 
and a plow. By this time spring was well on 
and we were planning to make a crop. In a run- 
away one of the school horses was badly injured. 
The purchase of the farm, etc., had about ex- 
hausted our Northern resources and the school 
was in debt. To my credit in the Bank of Chrisr 
tiansburg was a small sum of money, with which I 
purchased a horse. The crop that year was fairly 
successful. 

Before taking possession of the farm, it was 
understood that instead of the proceeds of the 

346 



EVOLUTION OF A SHOEMAKER 

farm going toward maintaining or paying teachers' 
salaries, the money should go toward building up 
the soil, which was well run down, and that we 
should devote all possible effort in the direction 
of restoring the soil to its once high state of fer- 
tilization. Owning this farm, we had the " Big 
House " where the master once lived, and several 
of the slave cabins, which still remain, where the 
slaves resided. Hundreds of slaves, I have been 
told, tilled this soil in the days long ago, when 
its productive power was greater than that of 
any estate in this whole section. 

It is a remarkable and significant fact that 
where the master once lived is a recitation building 
for colored boys and girls, and where the slaves 
once huddled around the flickering light of a pine- 
knot young Negro students are quartered daily, 
preparing for the duties of the morrow. 

In building up the school to its present po- 
sition, five persons, almost from the very begin- 
ning, have figured most prominently, viz.: E. A. 
Long and his wife. Miss WiUie Mae Griffin, the 
writer and his wife — aU Tuskegee graduates. It 
is needless that I remark here that the burdens 
borne by the men have been in no sense heavier 
than those borne by these faithful women. The 

347 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

road along which we have traveled has not been, 
by any means, a smooth one. We all had been 
toilers at Tuskegee and knew well how to face the 
duties of life. This was decidedly in our favor. I 
was the oldest of the company and perhaps had 
seen more of hardship than the others; it therefore 
fell to my lot to give courage to the others when 
hope was all but gone. 

Some time previous to our taking possession 
of the farm, some of the occupants had sown about 
half an acre in a kind of radish commonly known 
hereabout as " pig radish." It must be remem- 
bered that each year, after the eight months' aca- 
demic work was over, we received no money from 
any source whatever. Paying the salaries of teach- 
ers who were to leave for the summer and meeting 
other demands of the institution always exhausted 
the school's treasury before the summer season be- 
gan. With a " cropping " season of four months 
ahead, no money, no source from which any could 
be expected, the nice tender " pig radish," year 
after year, became our food-supply for the early 
part of the summer at least. Thus, while push- 
ing the operations of the farm, rebuilding the 
soil by means of turning under green crops, fer- 
tilizers, etc., " pig-radish " greens, western side 

348 



EVOLUTION OF A SHOEMAKER 

meat, and corn-meal constituted our chief diet. 
Beef came to us as a luxury twice a week. The 
work was divided so that E. A. Long, our treas- 
urer, was gardener, I was farmer, our wives and 
Miss Griffin were matrons and cooks. The 4th of 
July, 1900, found the work of the farm in such 
a prosperous condition that it was decided to cele- 
brate the event with a cake and some ice-cream, 
for by this time we owned a cow. 

One peculiar thing happened about the time we 
purchased this farm. We were teaching a graded 
school which we were eager to turn into a boarding 
institution. The pupils and patrons were in per- 
fect accord with the faculty, but as soon as the 
fact became known that we had purchased a large 
tract of land and would endeavor to build a board- 
ing and industrial school thereon, the members of 
the faculty at once became objects of scorn to 
almost the entire colored population. There were 
at that time enrolled in the school 240 children. 
Within less than a month more than 100 had 
dropped out. When school closed in May there 
were only 60 children attending. 

We went about our duties, however, without 
complaint. While we worked. Nature also worked 
for us. Vegetation flourished wherever seed were 

349 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

sown; the trees bore a harvest of apples such as 
I have not seen since, and all went well. 

As I look back over those years of trial, of 
privation, of sacrifice, I find they were conditions 
precedent to laying an enduring foundation. Our 
hope has been to establish a school where poor 
but earnest boys and girls can secure an education. 
It was through our efforts, first of all, that we were 
able to prove to the supporters of the school that 
such an institution could live and grow and do great 
and lasting good for those it is designed to help. 
Year by year the school has grown. Year by year 
the people of the community realize the sincerity 
of my teachers and give them hearty support. Pa- 
tience, toil, trust in God, and enterprise are the ele- 
ments which are fast putting this work on its feet. 

Every person who visits the school sees earnest- 
ness manifested on farm, in shop, in class, about 
the grounds, everywhere, and goes away a sincere 
friend. Not alone do we have our visitor's friend- 
ship, but he tells the simple story to others and 
the number of friends increases. 

Mr. R. C. Bedford, of Beloit, Wis., after visit- 
ing the school in January, 1905, took occasion to 
address a gentleman in the North who had inter- 
ested himself in raising funds for the school, in the 

350 



EVOLUTION OF A SHOEMAKER 

following language : " I have not visited the school 
for three years. Great changes have taken place 
since then. The good there being accomplished 
is simply immeasurable. Mr. Marshall and Mr. 
Long work together in such perfect harmony as 
to constitute a force of singular directness and 
power. I think the work is carried on most eco- 
nomically, and such a clear and full account of all 
expenditures is given to the public that you must 
have the utmost confidence of all your friends." 

A few years ago it was difficult for our Treas- 
urer to raise $1,875. The raising of funds for 
institutions is always difficult, but it is not as hard 
now to raise $6,000 to $8,000 as it was to raise 
$1,875 a few years ago. 

Mr. E. A. Long, our treasurer, whose faith- 
ful assistance I have had in every effort to develop 
the school, was with me, embarrassed by a debt of 
the boarding department of more than $600. This 
condition grew, in a large measure, out of the fact 
that we attempted to supply students' work on the 
farm to pay their expenses, and the proceeds of 
the farm were expended as far as possible in the 
direction of building up the soil. In the fall of 
1902 the board of managers assumed the responsi- 
bility of the boarding department, paid all indebt- 

351 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

edness, and to-day the school is operated on a cash 
basis. 

During four years there have been contributed 
toward this work $43,528.77. We have added 
to the original plant one $10,000 dormitory, 
a cottage costing $750, a barn at a cost of $2,000, 
and a shop building valued at $1,000. Much 
has been spent in the way of repairs. We 
have $1,000 invested in live stock, and more than 
$300 worth of farming implements. In each of 
the industrial departments fairly good equipment 
can be found. We have grown from a half acre 
of ground to more than 100 acres; from 2 horses 
to 43 head of live stock; from a printing-press 
weighing 75 pounds to one weighing 2,500 pounds. 
Agriculture, carpentry, printing, shoemaking, 
laundering, cooking, se^Wng, and basketry are car- 
ried on successfully. The farm produces large 
crops of cereals, vegetables, fruits, and raises a 
large share of the meat used by the school. All 
the flour for the past tlu^ee years came from the 
wheat produced on the farm. 

The growi:h of the school has commended itself 
favorably to those who have had occasion to in- 
vestigate its claims. A committee appointed to 
look into the condition of the school some time ago 

352 



EVOLUTION OF A SHOEMAKER 

made the following statement: " In conclusion, 
your committee would say that it feels that Messrs. 
Marshall and Long and their wives have made 
many sacrifices for the good of the school and have 
shown a true missionary spirit in carrying on the 
work, and their ideals and purposes are in accord 
with the very best. They have borne an awkward 
and heavy burden in financing the school, and your 
committee feels that if released from this care 
their teaching-work will be much improved and 
become very valuable in building up the school." 

In addition to the cultivation of the home-farm 
of 100 acres, the increased amount of stock makes 
it necessary to rent an adjacent pasture of 80 
acres, the property of two of our teachers. 

I have made an effort to supplement the knowl- 
edge acquired at Tuskegee through a school of 
correspondence and through the Chautauqua Read- 
ing Circle with some degree of success. 

The success of this school, in a very large meas- 
ure, is due to the consecrated effort of the members 
of the Friends' Freedmen's Association of Phila- 
delphia and the board of managers of the institu- 
tion. From the time I entered upon the work to 
the present. Principal Washington has also been a 
constant source of help and encouragement. Five 

353 



TUSKEGEE AND ITS PEOPLE 

hundred dollars given by him in the spring of 
1903 was the first money toward the erection of 
our new dormitory. A combination woodworking- 
machine is also a result of his interest. 

We have on hand an endowment fund of sev- 
eral thousand dollars which we are anxious to in- 
crease. Definite plans have been made for the 
erection of two new buildings. When the plans 
thus far mapped out are completed, the plant, 
now worth $30,000, will easily have a valuation 
of $75,000. 

(1) 



THE END 



354 



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